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Book^&Z 






THE 



NEW SPEAKER, 



EXERCISES IN RHETORIC ; 



BEIXG A SELECTION OF 



SPEECHES, DIALOGUES, ANI) POETRY, 



FROM THE MOST APPROVED 



AMERICAN AND BRITISH AUTHORS, 



SUITABLE 



FOR DECLAMATION 



BY WILLIAM B? FOWLE, 

TEACHER OF THE MOIflTORIAL SCHOOL, BOSTOW. 



BOSTON : 
HILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE, AND WILKINS 

1829.. 




K^l A 



^^\<^ 



OISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT? 

District Clerk^s Office. 

Be it remembered, that on the twentyeighth day of April, A. D. 1829f, ia the fffty- 
third year of the Independence of the United Stales of America, Wilham B. 
Fowle, of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right 
whereof he claims as author in the words following, to wit : 

' The New Speaker, or Exercises in Rhetoric ; being a Selection of Speeches, Dia" 
logues, and Poetry, from the most approved American and British Authors, suita- 
ble for Declamation.' 

In conformity to the act of the ' Congress of the United States, entitled, ' An act 
for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, 
to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ; ' 
and also to an act, entitled ' An act supplementary to an act, entitled " Am act for the 
encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the 
authors and proprietors of such copies during the times tlierein mentioned ; " and 
extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching histor- 
ical and other prints.' 

JNO. W. DAVIS, 
Clerk of the I>istrict of Massachusetts. 



J~9 4^ 



PREFACE, 



The favor shown to the American Speaker, published, 
as it was, under very inauspicious circumstances, has led 
to such a complete revisal of it in every part, that the 
Editor feels bound to assume the responsibility of the com- 
pilation, which before rested no where with certainty. A 
hope is indulged that Teachers of Elocution will find the 
JVew Speaker a better collection of Pieces adapted to the 
use of their pupils than any that has appeared. 

In the First Part, something like historical arrangement 
has been attempted ; and the names of the orators are al- 
phabetically disposed in the Index, the American being 
separated from the foreign productions, that the curious 
and patriotic may see how little cause we have to regret 
the youth of our country's literature. The pieces in the 
Second and Third Parts, being fewer in number, and usu- 
ally sought after by their titles, are placed in the Index as 
they succeed each other in the book. 

An apology is due to those Authors whose works have 
contributed to form this selection, not only for the freedom 
with which we have drawn upon them, but, in some cases, 
for the risk we have incurred of marring what was faultless 



iv PREFACE. 

as a whole, by compressing or taking only a part. This, 
however, was indispensable, and the Editor regrets that 
the pecuHar object of the selection compelled him to omit' 
many admirable specimens of eloquence and poetry, be- 
cause they were though not suitable for declamation in 
schools. 

A more serious apology should be made for the insertion 
of a few famihar and original Dialogues in the Second Part. 
Nothing but the utter poverty of this department of school 
books, and the lack of better materials of a sufficiently 
popular cast, could have reconciled us to the step we have 
taken. 

The publishers hope that the typographical neatness 
and accuracy of the work will entitle it to a high rank 
among the well executed school books which have of late 
done so much credit to the American Press. 

W. B. FOWLE. 

^pril, 1829. 



INDEX. 



PART FIRST. 



SPEECHES, &c. OF AMERICAN ORATORS. 



Ames, on the British Treaty, 
" Eulogy of Washington, . 

IBuckminster, on Toleration, 

Clay, on National Glory, 

Clinton, on National Greatness, 

Channing, on Liberty, 
" on Milton, 

Cushing, July 4, 1821, 

Dexter, Samuel, on Non Intercourse, 

Dexter, Franklin, July 4, 1819, 

Everett, E., July 4, 1826, . , . 
" Settlement of New England, 

" Advantages of an English Origin, 

" Sufferings of the Pilgrims, 

« Motives to Intellectual Exertion, 

" Lexington Battle, 

*' Continuation of the preceding, 

" Monument to Harvard, 

Everett, John, Prospects of Young Men, 

Greenwood, Duty of Educating the Poor, 

Henry, Patrick, on Resisting British Aggressions 

Harper, on Resisting French Aggression 

Hopkinson, on the Seminole War, 

Morris, on the Judiciary, 

" on the Navigation of the Mississippi, 

Madison, on Extent of Country, 

McDuffie, on Corruption, 

Otis, James, on British Aggressions, 

Plnkney, on Slavery, 

Piaine, R. T., on French Aggressions, 

:Piumer, on Civil Renown, 

Rahdolph, on Slavery, 

^ush, on British Warfare, 

Sergeant, on the Missouri Question, 

Story, Character of the Salem Settlers, 
" Diminution of the Indian Ttibes, 
" on American Genius, 
^« Second Extract, 



Page. 
. 55 

80 
163 

91 
179 
120 
167 
100 

84 

98 
103 
107 
110 
111 
131 
133 
135 
170 

160 
10 
57 



35 

180 
9 



92 
^t 

88 

41 

116 

144 

176 



INDEX. 



Sprague, Charles, Extirpation of the Indians, 
" " Intrepidity of our Ancestors, 

" " Character of La Fayette, . 

" " On Intemperance, 

Sprague, P., on Revolutionary Pensioners, 
Webster, Speech of John Adams, 

" on the Settlement of New England, 

'/ Second Extiact, / . . . 

" on the Greek Question, 

" on the Trial of Prescott, 

" Bunker Hill Monument, 

" to the Survivors of the Battle, 

" Power of Public Opinion, 

" on the Panama Mission, 
Wilson, in Vindication of the Colonies, 
Wayland, on the Missionary Enterprise, 

'* Second Extract, .... 

" Duties of an American Citiaen, 

Ware, before the Peace Society, . 



SPEECHES, &c. OF FOREIGN AUTHORS 

Burke, on Reconciliation with America, 

" Description of Junius, ... 

" on Economical Reform, 
" Impeachment of Hastings, 
" pn the loss of a Son, .... 
" Ballot by Beans, . . * . 

" on Declining the Poll, 
Burrowes, Character of Grattan, 
Bushe, on Amalgamation of Parliaments, 
Canning, on Peace with France, 

« on the Portuguese Expedition, 

Curran, Character of Lord Clare, 

" on the Pension List, ... 

" on Liberty of the Press, 
" on the Trial of Rowan, 
" in defence of Finnerty, 
" Picture of an Informer, 
Erskine, on the Trial of Williams, 
Edinburgh Review, on the Present Administration, 
" " Character of the Puritans, 

" " on the Alien Law, 

Greenville, on Taxing America, 
Grattan, Character of Lord Chatham, 
" on Irish Dependence, 
" Invective against Corry, 
Gilchrist, Despotism of European Governments, 
Home, on Duelling, . . . . . 

Junius, to the Duke of Bedford, . 

« to the Duke of Grafton, 
Mansfield, on the Privilege of Parliament, 
Macintosh, on the Burning of Washington, 
O'Connor, on Catholic Emancipation, 



191 



INDEX. 



Vtt 



Pitt, Reply to Walpole, .4 

" Reply to Grenville, 7 

" on Sending Troops to Boston, 18 

" on Addressing the King, 20 

" on Employing the Indians, 22 

Pulteney, on Reducing the Army, 30 

Phillips, Character of Napoleon, . . . . . . 165 

" on Civil Liberty, 184 

« Second Extract, 187 

« Third Extract, 188 

Scott, Peveril of the Peak, 194 

" Legend of Montrose, . . • . . . 197 ^ 198 

" Address of Richard Coeur de Lion, . . . . 199 

Walpole, against Pitt, 2 

PART SECOND. 
DRAMATIC PIECES. 



Othello and lago, .... 

Prince Henry and Fal staff. 
Scene from Henry VI. 
Scene from Venice Preserved, 
Scene from the Man of the World, 
Scene from Pizarro, — Pizarro and Gomez 

" " Rolla and Alonzo, 

Quackery Detected, 
Scene from ^own and Country, 
Sir Charles and Lady Racket, 
Scene from the Siege of Valencia, 
Scene from the Vespers of Palermo, 
Scene from the Tragedy of Bertram, 
William Tell, . . : . 

Scene from the Benevolent Jew, 
Self Interest, 

Captai5i Tackle and Jack Bowlin 
Irish Courtesy, 
Ennui, .... 

King James and Roderick Dhu, 
Lochiel and the Seer, 
The Dead Mother, 
Little Red Riding Hood, 
Inquisitor and Nathan 



Shakspeare. 
Id. 

Id. 
Otway. 

. MacJdin. 
' Kotezhue. 
Id. 
. TuUn. 



Mrs. Hemans. 

Id. 

. Maturin. 

Knowles. 

Cumberland. 

(Dramatized from Fielding.) 

Sedley's Winter in Dublin. 

Miss JBurney. 

. Scott. 

. Campbell. 

AthencBum. 

Atlantic Souvenir. 

(Altered by) Editor. 



Literary Vanity, . (Dramatized from Lesage by) Editor 

The French Cook, . . . " . Sayings and Doings. 

Lord Duberly and Dr Pangloss, . . . , . . . 

Pedantry, Original. 

Indigestion, . . ... . Scotch JSTewspaper. 

The Sick in his ovsrn Despite. . . . . Editor. 

The Will, ..... (Dramatized by) Id. 

The Haunch of Mutton, . . . (Dramatized by) Id. 
Pedigree, ......... Id. 



201 

205 
209 
211 
214 
219 
221 
223 
226 
228 
232 
236 
239 
242 
246 
249 
252 
255 
258 
260 
288 
268 
270 
272 
276 
278 
281 
285 
290 
293 
295 
298 
300 



Vlll 



INDEX. 



The English Traveller, . 

The American Antiquary, . 

The Fortune Teller, 

Physiognomy, 

The Revolutionary Pensioner, 

The Thing that 's Right, 



M. 


303 


Id. 


305 


Id. 


309 


Id. 


312 


Id. 


315 


Id. 


317 



PART THIRD. 



Antony's Address over the Body of Caesar, . . Shakspeare. 321 

Death of Marmion, . Scott. 324 

Ancient Battle in Scotland, Id. 326 

Bruce's Address, Burns. 329 

Battle of Talavera, . Byron. 330 

Hohenlinden, Campbell. 331 

Bunker Hill Battle, Pierpont. 332 

Battle of Waterloo, Byron. 333 

Death of Leonidas, Croly. 334 

Marco Bozzaris, Athenceum. 335 

Recollections of Greece, Byron. 336 

Liberty to Athens, Percival. 338 

Thernjopylae, Byron, 339 

Ode to Napoleon, (Curtailed) Id. 337 

Apostrophe of Napoleon Buonaparte, . . . Impey. 340 

Burial of Sir John Moore, Wolfe. 341 

The Soldier's Dream, ...... Campbell. 342 

Rienzi's Address to the Romans, .... Miss Mitford. 343 

The Destruction' of Sennacherib's Army, . . Byron. 344 

Belshazzar's Feast, . . . ( Curtailed) Mrs. Hemans. 345 

Belshazzar's Doom, Croly, 347 

The Restoration of Israel, ... ( Curtailed) Id. 348 

The Church Yard, ...... Knowles. 350 

What is Time, Marsden. 351 

The 1 reasures of the Deep, .... Mrs. Hemans. 352 
Extract from the Fire Worshippers, .... Moore. 353 

Second Extract from the same, Id. 354 

Outalissi's song, Campbell. 356 

Death of Bertram, .... . Scott. 358 

The Dying Brigand, Anonymous. 359 

The Combat of Fitz James and Roderick Dhu, . . . Scott. 361 
Casablanca, . . . . . . J\fr8. Hemans. 362 

A Prize Ode for Washington's Birth day, . . . Bailey. 363 

Shakspeare's Richard IIIj and King Lear, . . . Sprague. 365 

The Five Ages of Woman, Rogers. 366 

The Cameronian Dream, ...... . 368 

Elegy on Old Grimes, .... Providence Gazette. 369 

Peter's Ride to the Wedding,^ .... Anonymous. 370 

The Hare, . . . ." (Altered from Taylor by) Editor. 372 

Parody of ' The Burial of Sir John Moore,' . Scrap Book, 373 

The Apple Dumplings and George the Third, . . Wolcot. 374 

Orator Puff, . . Moore. 375 

Professional Duty, .... JVew Monthly Magazine. 377 



NEW SPEAKER 



ESTR.^CT FROM LORD MANSFIELd's SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF 
PEERS, 1770, ON THE BILL FOR PREVENTING THE DELAYS 
OF JUSTICE, BY CLAIMING THE PRIVILEGE OF PARLIA- 
MENT. 

I COME now to speak, upon what, indeed, I would have 
gladly avoided, had I not been particularly pointed at, for 
the part I have taken in this bill. It has been said, by a 
n^ble lord on my left hand, that I likewise am running the 
race of popularity. If the noble lord means by popularity, 
that applause bestowed by after ages on good and virtuous 
actions, I have long been struggling in that race : to what 
purpose all-trying time can alone determine. But if the 
noble lord means that mushroom popularity, which is raised 
without merit, and lost without a crime, he is much mista- 
ken in his opinion. I defy the noble lord to point out a 
sipgle action of my life, in which the popularity of the times 
ever had the smallest influence on my determination. I 
thank God I have a more permanent and steady rule for 
my conduct, the dictates of my own breast. Those who 
have foregone that pleasing advice, and given up their minds 
to be the slave of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity :. 
I pity them still more if their vanity leads them to mistake 
the shouts of a mob, for the trumpet of fame. Experience 
might inform them, that many, who have been saluted with 
the huzzas of a crowd one day, have received their execra- 
tions the next ; and many, who, by the popularity of their 



2 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have, never- 
theless appeared upon the historian's page, when truth has 
triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty. Why then 
the noble lord can think I am ambitious of present popular- 
ity, that echo of folly and shadow of renown, I am at a 
loss to determine. Besides I do not know that the bill now 
before your lordships will be popular ; it depends much 
upon the caprice of the day. It may not be popular to 
compel people to pay their debts ; and in that case, the 
present must be a very unpopular bill. It may not be pop- 
ular neither to take away any of the privileges of parha- 
ment ; for I very well remember, and many of your lord- 
ships may remember, that, not long ago, the popular cry 
was for the extension of privilege ; and so far did they carry 
it at that time, that it was said, the privilege protected mem- 
bers even in criminal actions ; nay, such was the power of 
popular prejudices over weak minds, that the very decisions 
of some of the courts were tinctured with that doctrine. It 
was undoubtedly an abominable doctrine ; I thought so then 
and I think so still ; but nevertheless, it was a popular doc- 
trine, and came immediately from those who are called the 
friends of liberty ; how deservedly, time will show. True 
liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when justice is equally 
administered to all ; to the king and to the beggar. Where 
is the justice then, or where is the law that protects a 
member of parliament more than any other man, from the 
punishment due to his crimes ^ The laws of this country 
allow of no place nor any employment to be a sanctuary 
for crimes ; and where I have the honour to sit as judge, 
neither royal favour, nor popular applause, shall protect 
the guilty. 



MR. VV^ALPOLE AGAINST MR. PITT, (AFTERWARDS LORD CHAT- 
HAM,) REFLECTING ON HIS YOUTH AND THEATRICAL MAN- 
NER. 1741. 

Sir — I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this de- 
bate, while it was carried on with calmness and decency, 
by men who do not suffer the ardour of opposition to cloud 
their reason, or transport them to such expressions as the 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 3 

dignity of this assembly does not admit. I have hitherto 
deferred to answer the gentleman who declaimed against 
the bill, with such fluency of rhetorick, and such vehemence 
of gesture ; who charged the advocates of the expedients 
now proposed, with having no regard to any interest but 
their own, and with making laws only to consume paper, 
and threatened them with the defection of their adherents, 
and the loss of their influence, upon this new discovery of 
their folly, and their ignorance. Nor, Sir, do I now answer 
him for any other purpose than to remind him how little 
the clamours of rage, and petulancy of invectives, contrib- 
ute to the purposes for which this assembly is called togeth- 
er ; — how little the discovery of truth is promoted, and the 
security of the nation established by pompous diction, and 
theatiical emotions. Formidable sounds and furious dec- 
lamations, confident assertions, and lofty periods, may aflect 
the young and inexperienced ; and perhaps the gentleman 
may have contracted his habits of oratory, by conversing 
more with those of his own age, than with such as have 
had more opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and more 
successful methods of communicating their sentiments. If 
the heat of his temper, Sir, vv^ould suffer him to attend to 
those whose age, and long acquaintance with business, give 
them an indisputable right to deference and superiority, he 
would learn, in time, to reason rather than declaim ; to pre- 
fer justness of argument, and an accurate knowledge of 
facts, to sounding epithets, and splendid superlatives, which 
may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no 
lasting impression on the mind. He will learn. Sir, that 
to accuse and prove are very different, and that reproaches 
unsupported by evidence, affect only the character of him 
that utters them. Excursions of fancy and flights of oratory, 
are indeed pardonable in young men, but in no other ; and 
it would surely contribute more, even to the purpose for 
which some gentlemen appear to speak (that of depreciat- 
ing the conduct of the administration) to prove the incon- 
veniences and injustice of this bill, than barely to assert 
them, with whatever magnificence of language, or appear- 
ance of zeal, honesty, or compassion. 



THE NEW SPEAKER 



MR. PITT'S REPLY TO MR. WALPOLE. 

Sir — The atrocious crime of being a young man, which 
the honourable gentleman has, with such spirit and decen- 
cy, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor 
deny,— but content myself with wishing that I may be one 
of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not 
of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. 
Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, 
I will not, Sir, assume the province of determining ; but 
surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportu^ 
nities which it brings have passed away without improve- 
ment, and vice appears to prevail, when the passions have 
subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the conse- 
quences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and 
whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely 
the object of either abhorrence or contempt, and deserves 
not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. 
Much more. Sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has ad- 
vanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more 
wicked with less temptation ; — who prostitutes himself for 
money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of 
his life in the ruin of his country. 

But youth. Sir, is not my only crime ; I have been accused 
of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either im- 
ply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my 
real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and lan- 
guage of another man. In the first sense, Sir, the charge is 
too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned, 
to be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use 
ray own language ; and though, perhaps, I may have some 
ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself un- 
der any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his 
mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience. 
If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, 
imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat 
him as a calumniator and a villain ; — nor shall any protec- 
tion shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, 
on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all 
those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench them- 
selves, — nor shall anything — but age — restrain my resent- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 5 

ment ; — age, which always brings one privilege, that of 
being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But 
with regard, Sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of 
opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have 
avoided their censure ; the heat that offended them is the 
ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my 
country, which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to 
suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is 
invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will 
exert my endeavours at whatever hazard, to repel the ag- 
gressor, and drag the thief to justice, — whoever may pro- 
tect them in their villany, and whoever may partake of their 
plunder. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. GRENVILLE's SPEECH ON AMERICAN 
TAXATION. 1765. 

Mr Speaker — I cannot understand the difference be- 
tween external and internal taxes. They are the same in 
effect, and differ only in name. That this kingdom has 
the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over Ameri- 
ca, is granted. It cannot be denied ; and taxation is a 
part of that sovereign power. It is one branch of the 
legislation. It is, it has been exercised, over those who 
are not, who were never represented. It is exercised 
over the India Company, the merchants of London, and 
the proprietors of the stocks, and over great manufactor- 
ing towns. It was exercised over the county palatine of 
Chester, and the bishopric of Durham, before they sent 
any representatives to parliament. I appeal for proof to 
the preambles of the acts which gave them representatives ; 
one in the reign of Henry VIII. the other in 'that of 
Charles II. 

When I proposed to tax America, I asked the house, if 
any gentleman would object to the right ; I repeatedly 
asked it, and no man would attempt to deny it. Protec- 
tion and obedience are reciprocal. Great Britain protects 
America, America is bound to yield obedience. If not, 
tell me when the Americans were emancipated .? When 
they want the protection of this kingdom, they are always 
1* 



6 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

very ready to ask it. That protection has always been 
afforded them in the most full and ample manner. The 
nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them 
this protection ; and now that they are called upon to contri- 
bute a small share towards the public expense, an expense 
arising from themselves, they renounce your authority, in- 
sult your officers, and break out, I might almost say, in 
open rebellion. 

The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to fac- 
tions in this house. Gentlemen are careless of the conse- 
quences of what they say, provided it answers the purpo- 
~ses of opposition. y 

We were told we trod on tender ground ; we were bid 
to expect disobedience. What was this, but telling the 
Americans to stand out against the law, to encourage their 
obstinacy with expectation of support from hence ? let us 
only hold out a little, they would say, our friends will soon 
be in power. Ungrateful people of America ! bounties 
have been extended to them. When I had the honor of 
serving the crown, while you yourselves were loaded with 
an enormous debt, you have given bounties on their lumber, 
on their iron, their hemp, and many other articles. You 
have relaxed, in their favour, the act of navigation, that 
Palladium of British commerce ; and yet I have been 
abused in all the public papers as an enemy to the trade 
of America. I have been particularly charged with giv- 
ing orders and instructions to prevent the Spanish trade, 
and thereby stopping the channel by which alone North 
America used to be supplied with cash for remittances for 
this country. I defy any man to produce any such orders 
or instructions. I discouraged no trade but what was il- 
licit, what was prohibited by act of parliament. I desire 
a West India merchant, well known in this city, a gentle- 
man of character, maybe admitted. He will tell you that 
I offered to do every thing in my power to advance the 
trade of America. I was above giving an answer to 
anonynjious calumnies; but in this place it be^mes mp to 
wipe off the aspersion. 



X 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



SPEECH OF MR. PITT, IN REPLY TO MR. GRENVILLE. 

Mr. Speaker — Gentlemen, Sir, have been charged 
with giving birth to sedition in America, They have spok- 
en their sentiments with freedom against this unhappy act, 
and that freedom has become their crime. Sorry I am to 
hear the liberty of speech in this house imputed as a crime. 
But the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liber- 
ty I mean to exercise. 

No gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it — it is a 
liberty by which the gentleman who calumniates it might 
have profited, by which he ought to have profited. He 
ought to have desisted from his project. The gentleman 
tells us America is obstinate ; America is almost in open 
rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three 
millions of people, so dead to all feelings of liberty as vol- 
untarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instru- 
ments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed 
at all points, with law cases and acts of parliament, with 
the statute book doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the 
cause of liberty : If I had, I myself would have cited 
the two cases of Chester and Durham : I would have cited 
them to have shown, that even under the most arbitrary 
reigns, parliament were ashamed of taxing people without 
their consent, and allowed them representatives. Why 
did the gentleman confine himself to Chester and Durham .'' 
He might have taken a higher example in Wales : Wales, 
that was never taxed by parliament till it was incorporated. 
I would not debate a particular point of law with the gen- 
tleman ; I know his abilities ; I have been obliged by his 
diligent researches. But for the defence of liberty upon a 
general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a 
ground upon which I stand firm; on which I dare meet 
any man. The gentleman tells us of many who are taxed, 
and not represented. The India Company, merchants, 
stock-holders, manufacturers. Surely many of these are 
represented in other capacities, as owners of hnd, or as 
freemen of boroughs. It is a misfortune that more are 
not actually represented. But they are all inhabitants, 
and as such, are virtually represented. Many have it in 
their option to be actually represented. They have con- 



8 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

nexions with those that elect, and they have influence over 
them. The gentleman mentioned the stock-holders. I 
hope he does not reckon the debts of the nation a part of 
the national estate. Since the accession of king William, 
many ministers, some of great, others of more moderate 
abilities, have taken the lead of government. He then 
went through the list of them, bringing it down till he 
came to himself, giving a short sketch of the characters of 
each of them. None of these, he said, thought or ever 
dreamed of robbing the colonies of their unconstitutional 
rights. That was reserved to marl^ the era of the late 
administration : not that there were wanting some when I 
had the honor to serve his majesty, to propose to me to 
burn my fingers with an American stamp act. With the 
enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their breasts, in 
the day of their distress, perhaps the Americans would 
have submitted to the imposition ; but it would have been 
taking an ungenerous or unjust advantage. The gentle- 
man boasts of his bounties to America ! Are not these 
bounties intended finally for the benefit of this kingdom ? 
If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. 
I am no courtier of America. I stand up for this kingdom. 
I maintain that the parliament has a right to bind, to re- 
strain America. 

A great deal has been said without doors of the power, 
of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be 
cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound 
bottom, the force of this country can crush America to 
atoms. I know the valour of your troops ; I know the skill 
of your officers. There is not a company of foot that has 
served in America out of which you may not pick a man 
of sufficient knowledge and experience to make a governor 
of a colony there. But on this ground, on the stamp. act, 
which so many here will think a crying injustice, I am one 
who will lift up my hands against it. 

In such a cause, your success would be hazardous. 
America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man ; she 
would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the 
constitution along with her. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



SPEECH OF JAMES OTIS. 



England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile, 
with bulrushes, as to fetter the step of freedom, more proud 
and firm in this youthful land, than where she treads the 
sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among 
the magnificent ^nountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary 
principles, like those, against which v/e now contend, have 
cost one king of England his life, another his crown — and 
they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies. 

We are two millions — one fifth fighting men. We are 
bold and vigorous, — and we call no man master. To the 
nation, from whom we are proud to derive our origin, we 
ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced 
assistance ; but it must not, and it never can be extorted. 

Some have sneeringly asked, ' Are the Americans too 
poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper ? ' No ! 
America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the 
right to take ten pounds, implies the right to take a thous- 
and ; and what must be the wealth, that avarice, aided by 
power, cannot exhaust ? True the spectre is now small ; 
but the shadow he casts before him, is huge enough to 
darken all this fair land. 

Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of 
gratitude, which we owe to England. And what is the 
amount of this debt .'* Why, truly, it is the same that the 
young lion owes to the dam, which has brought it forth on 
the solitude of the mountain, or left it aniid the winds and 
storms of the desert. 

We plunged into the wave, with the great charter of 
freedom in our teeth, because the faggot and torch were 
behind us. We have waked this new world from its sav- 
age lethargy ; forests have been prostrated in our path j 
towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of 
the tropics, and the fires in our autumnal woods are 
scarcely more rapid, than the increase of our wealth and 
population. 

And do we owe all this to the kind succour of the moth- 
er country ? No ! we owe it to the tyranny that drove us 
from her,- — to the pelting storms, which invigorated our 
helpless infancy. 



10 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

But perhaps others will say ' We ask no money from 
your gratitude, — we only demand that you should pay 
your own expenses.' And who, I pray, is to judge of 
their necessity ? Why, the King — (and, with all due rev- 
erence to his sacred majesty, he understands the real wants 
of his distant subjects, as little as he does the language of 
the Choctaws.) Who is to judge concerning the frequen- 
cy of these demands } The ministry. Who is to judge 
whether the money is properly expended ? The cabinet 
behind the throne. 

In every instance, those who take, are to judge for those 
who pay ; if>this system is suffered to go into operation, 
we shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege, that 
rain and dew do not depend upon parliament ; otherwise 
they would soon be taxed and dried. 

But, thanks to God, there is freedom enough left upon 
earth to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of 
liberty is extinguished in Greece and Rome, but the light 
of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores 
of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will 
resist unto death. But we will not countenance anarchy 
and misrule. The wrongs, that a desperate community 
have heaped upon their enemies, shall be amply and speed- 
dily requited. Still, it may be well for some proud men 
to remember, that a fire is lighted in these colonies, which 
one breath of their king may kindle into such fury that the 
blood of all England cannot extinguish it. 



EXTRACT FROM PATRICK HENRY'S SPEECH BEFORE THE LEGIfi- 
LATUR EOF VIRGINIA. 

Mr. President — It is natural for man to indulge 
in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes 
against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that syren, 
till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise 
men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty ? 
Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having 
eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which 
so nearly concern their temporal salvation .^ For my part, 
whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, L am willing to 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 11 

knoAV the whole truth ; to know the worst, and to provide 
for it, 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and 
that is the lamp of experience. I know no way to judge 
of the iliture but by the past. And judging by the past, 
I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the 
British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those 
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace 
themselves and the house r Is it that insidious smile with 
which our petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, 
Sir"; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves 
to be betrayed vrith a kiss. Ask yourselves how this graci- 
ous reception of our petition comports w^ith those warlike 
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. 
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and recon- 
ciliation ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be re- 
conciled, that force must be called in to win back our love .'' 
Let us not deceive ourselves, Sir. These are the imple- 
ments of war and subjugation — the last arguments to which 
kings resort. I ask gentlemen, Sir, what means this m.artial 
array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission ? Can 
gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it ? Has 
Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call 
for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? No, Sir, 
she has none. They are meant for us : they caii be meant 
for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us 
those chains, which the British ministry have been so long 
forging. And what have we to oppose to them ? Shall we 
try argument ? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten 
years. Have we any thing new to offer upon the subject ? 
Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of 
which it is capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we 
resort to entreaty and humble supplication ? What terms 
shall we find which have not been already exhausted } Let 
us not, I beseech you, Sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, 
we have done every thing that could be done, to avert the 
storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned — we 
have remonstrated — we have supplicated — we have pros- 
trated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its in- 
terposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and 
parliament. Our petitions have been slighted ; our remon- 
strances have produced additional violence and insult ; our 



n THE NEW SPEAKER. 

supplications have been disregarded ; and we have been 
spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, 
after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace 
and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. 
If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those 
inestimable privileges for which we have been so long con- 
tending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble strug- 
gle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we 
have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious 
object of our contest shall be obtained — we must fight ! — -I 
repeat it, Sir, we must fight ! I* An appeal to arms and to 
the God of Hosts is all that is left us. They tell us. Sir, 
that we are weak — unable to cope with so formidable an 
adversary. But when shall we be stronger ? Will it be 
the next week or the next year ? Will it be when we are 
totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be station- 
ed in every house ? Shall we gather strength by irresolu- 
tion and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means of effect- 
ual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging 
the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have 
bound us hand and foot .'* Sir, we are not v/eak, if we 
make a proper use of those means which the God of nature 
hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed 
in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that 
which we possess, are invincible by any force which our 
enemy can send against us. Besides, Sir, we shall not 
fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides 
over the destinies of nations ; and who will raise up friends 
to fight our battles for us. The battle, Sir, is not to the 
strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. 
Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough 
to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. 
There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery ! Our 

*' Imagine to yourself,' says Judge Tucker, ' this sentence delivered 
with all the calm dignity of Cato of Utica. — Imagine to yourself the Ro- 
man senate assembled in the capitol, when it was entered by the pro- 
fane Gauls, who, at first, were awed by their presence, as if they had 
entered an assembly of the gods ! Imagine that you heard that Cato 
addressing such a senate — Imagine that you saw the handwriting on the 
wall of Belshazzar's palace — Imagine you heard a voice, as from heaven, 
uttering the words, " We must fight ! " as the doom of fate, and you 
may have some idea of the speaker, the assembly to whom lie addressed 
himself, and the auditory, of which I was one.' 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 13 

chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the 
plains of Boston. The war is inevitable — and let it come ! ! 
I repeat it, Sir, let it come ! ! ! 

It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
may cry. Peace, peace, — but there is no peace. The war 
is actually begun ! 

The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to 
our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are 
already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ! What is it 
that gentlemen wish .'' what would they have ? Is life so 
dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of 
chains and slavery .'' Forbid it, Almighty God. — I know 
not what course others may take, but as for me, give me 
liberty or give me death ! ! ! 



EXTRACT FROM A DISCOURSE IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 
LIVES AND SERVICES OF JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEF- 
FERSON. D. WEBSTER. 

The distinguished Eulogist, after describing the character ofMr. Adams's 
eloquence, attempts an imitation of it in the following remarkable address, 
which he supposes the immortal patriot to have made when the Declara- 
tion of Independence was under consideration in the Continental Congress, 

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my 
hand, and my heart, to this vote. It is true, indeed, that 
in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But 
there is a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice 
of England has driven us to arms ; and, blinded to her own 
interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till in- 
dependence is now within our grasp. We have but to 
reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why then should we de- 
fer the declaration .'' Is any man so weak as now to hope 
for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either 
safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own 
life, and his own honor ? Are not you, Sir, who sit in 
that chair, is not he, our venerable colleague, near "you, 
are you not both already the proscribed and predestined 
objects of punishment and vengeance .'' Cut off from all 
hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, 
while the power of England remains, but outlaws ? If we 



14 THE JVEW SPEAKER. 

postpone independence, do we mean to carry on or to give 
up the war ? Do we mean to submit to the measures of 
parliament, Boston port-bill, and all ? Do we mean to sub- 
mit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to pow- 
der, and our country and its rights trodden down in the 
dust ? I know we do not mean to submit. We never 
shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn 
obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before 
God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when pushing 
him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the po- 
litical hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, 
in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives ? I 
know there is not a man here, who would not rather see 
a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earth- 
quake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith 
fall to the ground. For myself, having, twelve months 
ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington 
be appointed commander of the forces, raised or to be 
raised, for the defence of American liberty, may my right 
hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof 
of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver, in the support I give 
him. 

The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. 
And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Decla- 
reticn of Independence ^ That measure will strengthen us. 
It will give us character abroad. The nations will then 
treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowl- 
edge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. 
Nay I maintain that England herself, will sooner treat for 
peace with us on the footing of independence, than con- 
sent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole 
conduct towards us has been a course of injustice and op- 
pression. Her pride will be less wounded, by submitting 
to that course of things which now predestinates our inde- 
pendence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her 
rebellious subjects. The former she would regard as the 
result of fortune ; the latter she would feel as hei: own 
deep disgrace. Why then, why then, Sir, do we not, as 
soon as possible, change this from a civil to a national 
war ^ And since we must fight it through, why not put 
ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if 
we gain the victory ? 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 15 

If we fail it can be no worse for us. But we shall not 
fail. The cause will raise up armies ; the cause will cre- 
ate navies. The people, the people, if we are true to 
them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously 
through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people 
have been found. I know the people ofthese colonies, and 
I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and 
settled in their hearts and cannot be eradicated. Every 
colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow if we 
but take the lead. Sir, the declaration will inspire the 
people with increased courage. Instead of a long and 
bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress of 
grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British 
king, set before them the glorious object of entire inde- 
pendence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath 
of life. Read this declaration at the head of the army ; 
every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the sol- 
emn vow uttered, to maintain it or to perish on the bed of 
honor. Publish it from the pulpit ; religion will approve 
it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, re- 
solved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the pub- 
lic halls J proclaim it there ; let them hear it, who heard 
the first roar of the enemy's cannon ; let them see it, w^ho 
saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bun- 
ker-hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and 
the very walls will cry out in its support. 

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I 
see, I see clearly, through this day's business. You and 
I indeed may rue it. We may not live to the time, when 
this declaration shall be made good. We may die ; die, 
colonists ; die, slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously and 
on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleas- 
ure of Heaven that my country require the poor offering of 
my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of 
sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, 
let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, 
and that a free country. 

But, whatever maybe our fate, be assured, be assured, 
that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and 
it may cost blood : but it will stand, and it will richly com- 
pen'sate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, 
I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. 



16 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When 
we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They 
will celebrate it, with thanksgiving, with festivity, with 
bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return they will 
shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and 
slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of 
gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour 
is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my 
whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, 
and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to 
stake upon it ; and I leave off as I began, that live or die, 
survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my liv- 
ing sentiment, and by the blessing of God, it shall be my 
dying sentiment ; independence now ; and independence 
forever ! 



EXTRACT FROM BIR. WILSON'S SPEECH IN VINDICATION OF 
THE COLONIES. JAN. 1775. 

Mr. Chairman — Whence, Sir, proceeds all the invidi- 
ous and ill grounded clamour against the colonies of Ameri- 
ca ? Why is their virtuous opposition to the illegal attempts 
of their governors represented under the falsest colours ? 
This opposition, when exhibited in its true light, and when 
viewed, with unjaur^iced eyes, stands confessed the lovely 
offspring of freedom. It breathes the spirit of its parent. 
Of this ethereal spirit, their whole conduct, has shovn them 
eminently possessed. It has animated and regulated every 
part of their proceedings. As the attempts, open or se- 
cret, to undermine or destroy it have been repeated or en- 
forced ; in a just deg-ree, its vigilance and its vigour have 
been exerted to defeat or to disappoint them; As its ex- 
ertions have been sufficient for these purposes hitherto, let 
us hence draw a joyful prognostic, that they will continue 
sufficient for those purposes hereafter. It is not yet ex- 
hausted ; it will still operate irresistibly whenever a neces- 
sary occasion shall call forth its strength. 

Permit me. Sir, by appealing, in a few instances to the 
spirit and conduct of the colonists, to evince that what I 
have said of them is just. Did they disclose any uneasi- 



THE NEW SPEAKEil. i1 

ness at the proceedings and claims of the British parlia- 
ment, before those claims and proceedings afforded a rea- 
sonable cause for it ? Did they even disclose any uneasi- 
ness, when a reasonable cause for it wa,s 'first given ? Our 
rights were invaded by their regulations of our internal 
policy. We submitted to them : we were unwilling to op- 
pose them. The spirit of liberty was slow to act. When 
those invasions were renewed ; when the efficacy and ma- 
lignancy of them were attempted to be redoubled by the 
stamp act ; when chains were formed for us ; and prepara- 
tions were made for riveting them on our limbs — v/hat 
measures did we pursue ? The spirit of liberty now found 
it necessary to act : but she acted with the calmness and 
decent dignity suited to her character. Were we rash or' 
seditious ? Did we discover want of loyalty to our sove- 
reign ? Did we betray want of affection to our brethren 
in Britain ? Let our dutiful and reverential petitions- to the 
throne — let our respectful, though firm, remonstrances to 
the parliament — let our warm and affectionate addresses 
to our brethren, and ( we v/ill still call them ) our friends 
in Great Britain, — let all these, transmitted from every 
part of the continent, testify the truth. By their testimony 
let our conduct be tried. 

Those ministers and minions are sensible, that the oppo- 
sition is directed, not against his majesty, but against them ;, 
because they have abused his majesty's confidence, brought 
discredit upon his government, and derogated from his 
justice. They see the public vengeance collected in dark 
clouds around them ; their consciences tell them, that it 
should be hurled, like a thunder-bolt, at their guilty heads. 
Appalled with guilt and fear, they skulk behind the throne. 
Is it disrespectful to drag them into public view, and make 
a distinction between them and his majesty, under whose 
venerable name they daringly attempt to shelter their 
crimes ? Nothing can more effectually contribute to estab- 
lish his majesty on the throne, and to secure to him the 
affections of his people, than this distinction. By it we 
are taught to consider all the blessings of government as 
flowing from the throne ; and to consider every instance of 
oppression as proceeding, which in truth is oftenest the 
case, from the ministers. 

If, now, it is true, that all force employed for the pw^- 

2* 



18 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

poses so' often mentioned, is force unwarranted by any act 
of parliament ; unsupported by any principle of the com- 
mon law ; unauthorized by any commission from the 
crown — that, instead of being employed for the support 
of the constitution and his majesty's government, it must 
be employed for the support of oppression and ministerial 
tyranny — if all this is true — and I flatter myself it ap- 
pears to be true — can any one hesitate to say, that to re^ 
sist such force is lawful : and that both the letter and the 
spirit of the British constitution justify such resistance ? 

Resistance, both by the letter and the spirit of the Brit- 
ish constitution, may be carried farther, when necessity re- 
quires it, than I have carried it. Many examples in the 
English history might be adduced, and many authorities of 
the greatest weight might be brought, to show, that when 
the king, forgetting his character and his dignity, has step- 
ped forth, and openly avowed and taken a part in such 
iniquitous conduct as has been described -, in such cases, 
indeed, the distinction above mentioned, wisely made by 
the constitution for the security of the crown, could not be 
applied ; because the crown had unconstitutionally render- 
■ed the application of it impossible. What has been the 
consequence ? The distinction between him and his minis^- 
ters has been lost ; but they have not been raised to his 
situation : he has sunk to theirs. 



EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF MR. PITT, IN THE BRITISH 
PARLIAMiyVT. ^JAN. 1775. 

My Lords — I rise with astonishment to see these pa- 
pers brought to your table at so late a period of this busi- 
ness ; papers, to tell us what ? Why what all the world 
knew before ; that the Americans, irritated by repeated in- 
juries, and stripped of their inborn rights and dearest privi- 
leges, have resisted, and entered into associations for the 
preservation of their common liberties. 

Had the early situation of the people of Boston been at- 
tended to, things would not have come to this. But the 
infant complaints of Boston were literally treated like the 
capricious squalls of a child^ who it was said, did not know 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 19 

whether it was aggrieved or not. But full well I knew, at 
that time, that this child, if not redressed, would soon as- 
sume the courage and voice of a man. Full well I knew, 
that the sons of ancestors, born under the same free con- 
stitution, and once breathing the same liberal air as En- 
glishmen, would resist upon the same principles, and on 
the same occasions. 

What has government done ? They have sent an arm- 
ed force, consisting of seventeen thousand men, to dragoon' 
the Bostonians into what is called their duty ; and so far 
from once turning their eyes to the policy and destructive 
consequence of this scheme, are constantly sending out 
more troops. And we are told in the language of men'ace, 
that, if seventeen thousand men won't do, fifty thousand 
shall. 

It is true, my lords, with this force they may ravage the 
country ; waste and destroy as they march ; but, in the pro- 
gress of fifteen hundred miles, can they occupy the places 
they have passed ? Will not a country, which can produce 
three millions of people, wronged and insulted as they are, 
start up like hydras in every corner, and gather fresh 
strength from fresh opposition .'' Nay, what dependence 
can you have upon the soldiery, the unhappy engines of 
your wrath .'' They are Englishmen, who must feel for the 
privileges of Englishmen. Do you think that these men 
can turn their arms against their brethren .'* Surely not. 
A victory must be to them a defeat ; and carnage a sa- 
crifice. 

But it is not merely three millions of people, the pro- 
duce of America, we have to contend with in this unnatu- 
ral struggle ; many more are on their side, dispersed over 
the face of this wide empire. Every whig in this country 
and in Ireland is with them. Who, then, let me demand, 
has given, and continues to give, this strange and uncon- 
stitutional advice ? I do not mean to level at any one man, 
or any particular set of men ; but thus much I will venture 
to declare, that if his majesty continues to hear such coun- 
sellors, he will not only be badly advised, but undone. He 
may continue indeed to wear his crown ; but it will not be 
worth his wearing. Robbed of so principal a jewel as 
America, it will lose its lustre, and no longer beam that ef- 
fulgence which should irradiate the brow of majesty. 



20 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

In this alarming crisis, I come with this paper in my 
hand to offer you the best of my experience and advice ; 
which is, that an humble petition be presented to his ma- 
jesty, beseeching him, that in order to open the way to- 
wards a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in 
America, it may graciously please him, that immediate 
orders be given to General Gage for removing his majesty's 
forces from the town of Boston. 

And this, my lords, upon the most mature and deliberate 
grounds, is the best advice I can give you, at this junc- 
ture. Such conduct will convince America that you mean 
to try her cause in the spirit o^ freedom and inquiry, and 
not in letters of blood. There is no time to be lost. Every 
hour is big with danger. Perhaps, while I am now speak- 
ing the decisive blow is struck, which may involve millions 
in the consequence. And, believe me, the very first drop 
of blood which is shed, will cause a wound which may 
never be healed. 



MR. Pitt's speech on moving an amendment to the 

ADDRESS. 

It has been usual on similar occasions of difficulty and 
distress, for the crown to make application to this house, 
the great hereditary council of this nation, for advice and 
assistance. As it is the right of parliament to give, so it is 
the duty of the crown to ask it. But on this day, and in 
this extremely momentous exigency, no reliance is reposed 
on your councils — no advice is asked of parliament ; but 
the crown from itself,^and by itself, declares an unalterable 
determination to pursue its own preconcerted measures ; 
and what measures, my lords ? Measures which have pro- 
duced hitherto nothing but disappointments and defeats. 
I cannot, my lords, I will not join in congratulation on 
misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and 
tremendous moment : it is not a time for adulation : the 
smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and 
awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in 
the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the 
darkness and delusion which envelope it ; and display, in 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 21 

its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is 
brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to ex- 
pect support in their infatuation ! Can parliament be so 
dead to its dignity and duty as to give their support to mea- 
sures thus obtruded and forced upon them ? Measures, 
my lords which have reduced this great and flourishing 
empire to scorn and contempt. But yesterday, ' and En- 
gland might have stood against the world^Now, none so 
poor to do her reverence.' The people whom we at first 
despised as Rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as En- 
emies, are abetted against you, supplied with every milita- 
ry store, their interest consulted, and their ambassadors 
entertained by your inveterate enemy ; and our ministers 
do not and dare not interpose with dignity and effect. The 
desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No 
man more highly esteems and honours the English troops 
than I do : I know their virtues and their valour : I know 
they can achieve any thing except impossibilities ; and I 
know that the conquest of English-America is an im- 
possibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer 
America. What is your present situation there ? We do 
not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns 
we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell 
every expense, and strain every effort, accumulate every 
assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of ev- 
ery German despot ; your attempts forever will be vain 
and impotent ; doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid 
on which you rely ; for it irritates to an incurable resent- 
ment the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with 
the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them 
and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. 
If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a 
foreign troop remained in my country, I never would lay 
down my arms — never, never, never. 



22 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

EXTRACT FROM LORD CHATHAM's SPEECH ON AN ADDRESS 
TO THE THRONE. 

Some censures having been cast upon his majesty's ministers for em- 
ploying savages against the revolted colonies in America, Lord Suffolk 
declared that ' administration would have been highly reprehensible, if 
"entrusted, as they were, with the suppression of so unnatural a rebellion, 
they had not used all the means which God and nature had put into 
their hands.' — Lord Chatham then rose and said : — 

I AM astonished ! — shocked ! to hear such principles 
confessed — to hear them avowed in this house, or in this 
country : principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and 
unchristian ! 

My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again up- 
on your attention ; but I cannot repress my indignation. I 
feel myself impelled by every duty. My lords, we are 
called upon as members of this house, as men, as Chris- 
tian men, to protest against such notions standing near 
the throne, polluting the ear of majesty. ' That God 
and nature put into our hands ! ' I know not what ideas 
that lord may entertain of God and nature ; but I know 
that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to 
religion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred 
sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian 
scalping knife — to the cannibal savage for torturing, mur- 
dering, roasting, and eating, literally, my lords, eating the 
mangled victims of his barbarous battles ! Such horrible 
notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, 
every generous feeling of humanity, and every sentiment 
of honor. 

These abominable principles, and this more abominable 
avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I 
call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers 
of the gospel, and pious pastors of our church ; I conjure 
them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of 
their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this 
learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their 
country. I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsul- 
lied sanctity of their lawn ; upon the learned judges, to in- 
terpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pol- 
lution. I call upon the honor of your lordships, to rever- 
ence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your 



THE NEW SPEAKER. ^B 

own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, 
to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius 
of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these 
walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with 
indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led 
your victorious fleets against the boasted armada of Spain ; 
in vain he defended and established the honor, the liber- 
ties, the religion, the protestcmt religion, of this country, 
against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the inquisi- 
tion, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial 
practices are let loose among us. — To turn forth into our 
settlements, among our ancient connexions, friends, and re- 
lations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of 
man, woman, and child ! to send forth the iniidel savage — ' 
against whom ? against your protestant brethren ; to lay 
waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extir'- 
pate their race and name, with these horrible hell-hounds 
of savage war ! — hcU-JtGunds, I say, of savage war ! Spain 
armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the w^retched 
natives of America : and we improve on the inhuman ex- 
ample even of Spanish cruelty : we turn loose these sav- 
age hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in 
America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and reli- 
gion, endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify hu- 
manity. 

My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, 
our constitution, and our religion, demands the most sol- 
emn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your 
lordships, and the united powers of the state, to examine it 
thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indeli- 
ble stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore 
these holy prelates of our religion, to do away these ini- 
quities from among us. Let them perform a lustration ; 
let them purify this house, and this country, from this 
sin. 

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to 
say more ; but my feelings and indignation were too 
strong to have said less. I could not have felept this night 
in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without 
giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such prepos- 
terous and enormous principles. 



^4 THE NEW SPEAKER 

CHARACTER OP MR PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. GRATTAN, 

The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had 
not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the 
features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. 
His august mind overawed majesty, and one of his sove- 
reigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he 
conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from 
his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of 
vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, 
sunk him to the vulgar level of the great ; but, overbear- 
ing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, 
his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed 
party ; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. 
France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the 
house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy 
of England. The sight of his mind was infinite ; and his 
schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age, 
but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by 
which these schemes were accomplished 5 always seasonable 
always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding ani- 
mated by ardor, and enlightened by prophecy. The ordina- 
ry feelings which make life amiable and indolent were un- 
known to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weak- 
ness reached him ; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of 
life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally 
into our system, to counsel and to decide. A character so 
exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonish- 
ed a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of 
Pitt through all her classes of venality. Corruption imag- 
ined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, 
and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and 
much of the ruin of his victories ; but the history of his 
country and the calamities of the enemy, answered and re- 
futed her. 

Nor were his political abilities his only talents : his elo- 
quence was an aera in the senate, peculiar and spontane- 
ous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinc- 
tive wisdom ; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the 
splendid conflagration of TuUy ; it resembled sometimes 
the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like 
Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through 



THE NEW SPEAKER. ^5 

the painful subtilty of argumentation; nor was he like 
Townsend, forever on the rack of exertion ; but rather 
lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the 
flashings of the mind, which like those of his eye, were felt, 
but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was in 
this man something that could create, subvert, or reform ; 
an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon 
mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asun- 
der, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with un- 
bounded authority ; something that could establish or over- 
whelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should 
resound through the universe. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. BURKE's SPEECH ON RECONCILIATION 
WITH AMERICA. 

Mr. Speaker — I cannot prevail on myself to hurry 
over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. 
We stand where we have an immense view of what is, 
and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon 
the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this 
noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national 
prosperity has happened within the short period of the life 
of man. It has happened within sixtyeight years. There 
are those alive whose memory might touch the two ex- 
tremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remem- 
ber all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an 
age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He 
was then old enough, acta parentum jam legere, et quce sit 
proterit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the angel of 
this auspicious youth, forseeing the many virtues, which 
made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the 
most fortunate men of his age, had opened to him in 
vision, that, when, in the fourth generation, the third prince 
of the house of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the 
throne of that nation, which, (by the happy issue of mode- 
rate and healing councils,) was to be made Great Britain, 
he should see his son. Lord Chancellor of England, turn 
back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and 
raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched 
3 



26 THE JSEW SPEAKER. 

the family with a new one. If amidst these bright and happy 
scenes of domestic honours and prosperity, that angel 
should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising 
glories of his country, and whilst he was gazing with ad- 
miration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the 
genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible 
in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal prin- 
ciple, rather than a formed body, and should tell him — 
' Young man, there is America — which at this day serves 
for little more than to amuse you M/ith stories of savage 
men, and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before you taste of 
death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce 
which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever 
England has been growing to by a progressive increase of 
improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by suc- 
cession of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements 
in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as 
much added to her by America in the course of a single 
life ! ' If this state of his country had been foretold to 
him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of 
youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make 
him believe it ? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it ! 
Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary 
the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day ! 

When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fic- 
tion lags after truth ; invention is unfruitful, and imagina- 
tion cold and barren. For some time past the old world 
has been fed from the new. The scarcity, which you have 
felt, would have been a desolating famine, if this child of 
your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman chari- 
ty, Tiad not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance 
to the mouth of its exhausted parent. 

When I contemplate these things ; when I know that 
the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of 
ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form 
by the constraints of a watchful and suspicious govern- 
ment, but that through a wise and salutary neglect, a gen- 
erous nature has been suffered to take her own way to 
perfection ; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see 
how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of 
power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human 
contrivances melt, and die away within me. My rigour 
relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 27 

JUNIUS TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 

Let us consider you, then, my Lord, as arrived at the 
summit of worldly greatness : let us suppose that all your 
plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your 
most sanguine wishes gratified, in the fear as well as the 
hatred of the people ; can age itself forget that you are in 
the last act of life ? Can grey hairs make folly venerable ? 
and is not their period to be reserved for meditation and 
retirement ? For shame ! my Lord, let it not be recorded 
of you, that the latest m^oments of your life were dedicated 
to the same unwoithy pursuits, the same busy agitations, 
in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Con- 
sider, that, although you cannot disgrace your former life, 
you are violating the character of age, and exposing the 
impotent imbecility after you have lost the vigour of the 
passions. 

Your friends will ask, perhaps. Where shall this unhap- 
py old man retire ? Can he remain in the metropolis, 
where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace 
so often attacked ? If he returns to Wooburn, scorn and 
mockery await hini. He must create a solitude round his 
estate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. 
At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than proba- 
ble ; at Exeter inevitable. No honest Englishman will 
ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman for- 
give his treachery to Lord Bute. At every town he en- 
ters, he must change his liveries and name. Whichever 
way he flies, the hue and cry of the country pursues him. 
In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his adminis- 
tration have been more sensibly felt ; his virtues better un- 
derstood ; or, at worst, they will not for him alone, forget 
their hospitality. As well might Verres have returned to 
Sicily. You have twice escaped, my Lord ; bev/are of a 
third experiment. The indignation of a whole people 
plundered, insulted, and oppressed as they have been, will 
not always be disappointed. 

It is vain therefore to shift the scene. You can no more 
fly from, your enemies than from yourself Persecuted 
abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and 
find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my Lord^ 
you may quit the field of business, though not the field ol 



28 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

danger ; and though you cannot be safe, you may cease to 
be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the 
advice of those pernicious friends, with whose interests 
you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have 
sacrificed every thing which should be dear to a man of 
honour. They are still base enough to encourage the fol- 
lies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. 
As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as the laws 
of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by expe- 
rience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad charac- 
ter. Even now they tell you life is no more than a dram- 
atick scene, in which the hero should preserve his consist- 
ency to the last ; and that, as you lived without virtue^ 
you should die without repentance. 



EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF 
GRAFTON.^ JUNIUS . 

My Lord — With what force, with what protection, are 
you prepared to meet the united detestation of the people 
of England ? The city of London has given a generous 
example to" the kingdom, in what manner a king of this 
country ought to be addressed ; and I fancy, my Lord, it 
is not yet in your courage to stand between your sovereign 
and the addresses of his subjects. The injuries you hiive 
done this country are such as demand not only redress, but 
vengeance. In vain shall you look for protection to that 
venal vote which you have already paid for. Another 
must be purchased ; and to save the minister, the house of 
commons must declare themselves not only independent of 
their constituents, but the 'determined enemies of the con- 
stitution. Consider, my Lord, whether this be an extrem- 
ity to which their fears will permit them to advance ; or, if 
their protection should fail you, how far you are authorized 
to rely upon the sincerity of those smiles, which a pious 
court lavishes without reluctance upon a libertine by pro- 
fession. It is not indeed the least of the thousand contra- 
dictions which attend you, that a man, marked to the 
w^orld by the grossest violation of all ceremony and deco- 
rum, should be the first servant of a court, in which pray- 



THE NEW SPElAKEJtV 2^ 

eVs are morality, and kneeling is religion. Trust not too 
far to appearances, by which your predecessors have been; 
deceived, though they have not been injured. Even the 
best of princes may at last discover, that this is a conten- 
tion, in which every thing may be lost, but nothing can be 
gained ; and as you became minister by accident, were 
adopted without choice, trusted without confidence, and 
continued without favour, be assured, that, whenever an 
occasion presses, you will be discarded without even the 
forms of regret. You will then have reason to be thank- 
ful, if you are permitted to retire to that seat of learning, 
which in contemplation of the system of your life, the ; 
comparative purity of your manners with those of their high 
steward, and a thousand other recommending circumstan- 
ces, has chosen you to encourage the growing virtue of 
their youth, and to preside over their education. When-^ 
ever the spirit of distributing prebends and bishopricks 
shall have departed from you, you will find that learned 
seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium of an in- 
stallation, and, what in truth it ought to be, once more a 
peaceful scene of slumber and thoughtless meditation. 
The venerable tutors of the university will no longer dis- 
tress your modesty, by proposing you for a pattern to their 
pupils. The learned dulness of declamation will be silent ; 
and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will 
forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of the slicceed- 
ing age&j I could wish that your retreat might be deferred, 
until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity 
of corruptien, at which tke worst examples cease to be 
contagious. 



DESCRIPTION OF JUNIUS.— ^BURKE. 

Where, then. Sir, shall we look for the origin of this 
relaxation of the laws and of all government ? How comes 
this Junius to have broken through the cobwebs of the law, 
and to range uncontrolled, unpunished through the land ? 
The myrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, 
pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon 
me, or you, or you : no they disdairv such vermin, when 
3* 



m ' THE NEW SPEAKER. 

the liiiighfy boar of the forest, that has broken through alf 
their toils, is before them. But what will all their efforts 
avail ? No sooner has he wounded one, than he lays 
down another dead at his feet. For my part, when I saw 
his attack upon the king, I own my blood ran cold. I 
thought he had ventured too far, and that there was an 
end of his triumphs ; not that he had not asserted many 
truths. Yes, Sir, there are in that composition many bold 
truths by which a wise prince might profit. It was the 
rancour and venom with which I was struck. In these 
respects the North Briton is as much inferior to him, as 
in strength, wit, and judgment. But, while I expected 
from this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him 
rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both 
houses of parliament. Yes, he did make you his quarry, 
and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You 
crouched, and still crouch beneath his rage. Nor has he 
dreaded the terror of your brow, Sir ; he has attacked 
even you — he has — and I believe you have no reason to 
triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying away 
our royal eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a 
rock, he has laid you prostrate. King, lords, and com- 
mons, are but the sport of his fury. Were he a member 
of this house, what might not be expected from his knowl- 
edge, his firmness, and integrity ! He would be easily 
known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, 
by his vigour. Nothing would escape his vigilance and 
activity ; bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sa- 
gacity ; nor could promises or threats induce him to con-, 
ceal any thing from the publick. 



THE ARMY. 

Sir — 'We have heard a great deal about parliamentary 
armies, and about an army continued from year to year. 
I have always been, Sir, and always shall be, against a 
standing army of any kind : to me it is a terrible thing, 
whether under that of parliamentary or any other designa- 
tion ; a standing army is still a standing army, whatever 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 31 

name it be called by ■ they are a body of men distinct from 
the body of the people ; they are governed by different 
laws ; and blind obedience, and an entire submission to the 
orders of their commanding officer, is their only principle. 
The nations around us, Sir, are already enslaved, and have 
been enslaved by those very means ; by means of their 
standing armies they have every one lost their liberties. 
It is indeed impossible that the liberties of the people can 
be preserved in any country where a numerous standing 
army is kept up. Shall we then take any of our measures 
from the example of our neighbours ? No, Sir, on the 
contrary, from their misfortunes we ought to learn to avoid 
those rocks upon which they have split. 

It signifies nothing to tell me, that our army is com- 
manded by such gentlemen as cannot be supposed to join 
in any measures for enslaving their country ; it may be so ; 
I hope it is so ; I have a very good opinion of many gen- 
tlemen now in the army ; I believe they would not join 
in any such measures ; but their lives are uncertain, nor 
can we be sure how long they may be continued in com- 
mand ; they may be all dismissed in a moment, and proper 
tools of power put in their room. Besides, Sir, we know 
the passions of men, we know how dangerous it is to trust 
the best of men with too much power. Where was there a 
braver army than that under Julius Caesar ? Where was 
there ever an army that had served their country more 
faithfully ? That army was commanded generally by the 
best citizens of Rome, by men of great fortune and figure 
in their country } yet that army enslaved their country. 
The affections of the soldiers towards their country, the 
honour and integrity of the under officers are not to be 
depended on : by the military law, the administration of 
justice is so quick, and the punishments so severe, that 
neither officer nor soldier dares offer to dispute the orders 
of his supreme commander : he must not consult his own 
inclination ; if an officer were commanded to pull his own 
father out of his house, he must do it ; he dares not diso- 
bey ; immediate death would be the sure consequence of 
the least grumbling. And if an officer were sent into the 
court of requests, accompanied by a body of musketeers 
with screwed bayonets, and with orders to tell us what we 
ought to do, and how we were to vote, 1 know what would 



S2 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

be the duty of this house ; I know it would be our duty to 
order the officer to be taken and hanged up at the door of 
the lobby : but, Sir, I doubt much if such a spirit could be 
found in the house, or in any house of commons that will 
ever be in England. 

Sir, I talk not of imaginary things ; I talk of what has 
happened to an Erlghsh house of commons, and from an 
English army ; not only from an English army, but an 
army that was raised by that very house of commons, an 
army that was paid by them, and an army that was com- 
manded by generals appointed by them. Therefore do 
not let us vainly imagine, that an army raised and main- 
tained by authority of parliament, will always be submis- 
sive to them : if an army be so numerous as to have it in 
their power to over-awe the parliament, they will be sub- 
missive as long as the parliament does nothing to disoblige 
their favourite general ; but when that case happens, I am 
afraid that, in place of the parliament's dismissing the army, 
the army will dismiss the parliament, as they have done 
heretofore. Nor does the legality or illegality of that par- 
liament, or of that army, alter the case ; for, with respect 
to that army, and according to their way of thinking, the 
parliament dismissed by them was a legal parliament ; they 
were an army, raised and maintained according to law, 
and at first they were raised, as they imagined, for the 
preservation of those liberties which they afterwards de- 
stroyed. 

It has been urged. Sir, that whoever is for the Protes- 
tant succession must be for continuing the army : for that 
very reason, Sir, I am against continuing the army. I 
know that neither the protestant succession in his majes- 
ty's most illustrious house, nor any succession, can ever be 
safe, as long as there'is a standing army in the country. Ar- 
mies, Sir, have no regard to hereditary successions. The 
first two Caesars at Rome did pretty well, and found means 
to keep their armies in tolerable subjection, because the 
generals and officers were all their own creatures. But 
how did it fare with their successors } Was not every one 
of them named by the army, without any regard to heredi- 
tary right, or to any right .'' A cobbler, a gardener, or any 
man who happened to raise himself in the army, and could 
gain their affections, was made emperor of the world. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 33 

Was not every succeeding emperor raised to the throne or 
tumbled headlong into the dust, according to the mere whim, 
or mad frenzy of the soldiers ? 

We are told, this army is desired to be continued but for 
one year longer, or for a limited term of years. How 
absurd is this distinction ? Is there any army in the world, 
continued for any term of years ? Does the most absolute 
monarch tell his army, that he is to continue them for any 
number of years, or any number of months ? How long 
have we already continued our army from year to year ? 
And if it thus continues, wherein will it differ from the 
standing armies of those countries which have already sub- 
mitted their necks to the yoke. We are now come to the 
Rubicon ; our army is now to be reduced, or it never will ; 
from his majesty's own mouth we are assured of a pro- 
found tranquillity abroad, we know there is one at home ; 
if this is not a proper time, if these circumstances do not 
afford us a safe opportunity for reducing at least a part of 
our regular forces, we never can expect to see any reduc- 
tion I and this nation, already overburdened with debts and 
taxes, must be loaded with the heavy charge of perpetually 
supporting a numerous standing army ; and remain forever 
exposed to the danger of having its liberties and privileges 
trampled upon by any future king or ministry, who shall 
take it into their heads to do so, and shall take a proper 
care to model the army for that purpose. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. MORRIs's SPEECH ON THE JUDICIARY 
ESTABLISHMENT. 

Mr President— Is there a member of this house, who 
can lay his hand on his heart and say, that consistently 
with the plain words of the constitution, we have a right to 
repeal this law ? I believe not. And if we undertake to 
construe this constitution to our purposes, and say that the 
public opinion is to be our judge, there is an end to all 
constitutions. To what will not this dangerous doctrine 
lead ? Should it to day be the popular wish to destroy the 
first magistrate, you can destroy him. And should he to- 
morrow be able to concihate to him the popular will, and 



34 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

lead them to wish for your destruction, it is easily effect- 
ed. Adopt this principle, and the whim of the moment 
will not only be the law, but the constitution of our 
country. 

Some, indeed flatter themselves, that our destiny will be 
like that of Rome. Such, indeed, it might be, if we had 
the same wise, but vile aristocracy under whose guidance 
they became the masters of the world. But we have not 
that strong aristocratic arm, which can seize a wretched 
citizen, scourged almost to death by a remorseless creditor^ 
turn him into the ranks, and bid him as a soldier, bear our 
eagle in triumph round the globe. I hope to God we shall 
. never have such an abominable institution. But what, I ask, 
will be the situation of these states (organized as they now 
are) if, by the dissolution of our national compact, they .be 
left to themselves ? What is the probable result .'' We sliall 
either be the victims of foreign intrigue, and split into fac- 
tions, fall under the domination of a foreign power, or else, 
after the misery and torment of civil war, become the sub- 
jects of an usurping military despot. What but this speci- 
fic part of it, can save us from ruin ? The judicial power, 
that fortress of the constitution, is now to be overturn- 
ed. Yes, with honest Ajax, I would not only throw a 
shield before it, I would build around it a wall of brass. 
But I am too weak to defend the rampart against the host 
of assailants. I must call to my assistance their good 
sense, their patriotism, and their virtue. Do not, gentle- 
men, suffer the rage of passion to drive reason from her 
seat. If this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy the 
defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded 
your pride or roused your resentment ? Have, I conjure 
you, the magnanimity to pardon that offence. I entreat, I 
implore you, to sacrifice those angry passions to the inter- 
ests of our country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the 
altar of patriotism. Let it be an expiatory libation for the 
weal of America. Do not, for God's sake, do not suffer that 
pride to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin. Indeed, indeed, 
it will be but of little, very little avail, whether one opinion 
or the other be right or wrong ; it will heal no wounds, it will 
pay no debts, it will build no ravaged towns. Do not rely 
on that popular will, which has brought us frail beings into 
political existence ^ That opinion is but a changeable 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 35 

thing. It will soon change. This very measure will 
change it. You will be deceived. Do not, I beseech you, 
in reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the 
harmony, the existence of our nation to the wild wind. 
Trust not your treasure to the waves. Throw not your 
compass and your chart into the ocean. Do not believe 
that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, 
you will be deceived. Oh ! cast not away this only anchor 
of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the diffi- 
culties through which it was obtained. ' I stand in the pre- 
sence of Almighty God and of the world. I declare to you, 
that if you lose this charter, never, no, never will you 
getcanother. We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting 
point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate. 
Pause — pause — for Heaven's sake, pause. 



EXTENT OF COUNTRY NOT DANGEROUS TO THE UxVION. 

MADISON. 

T SUBMIT to you, my fellow citizens, these considerations 
in full confidence that the good sense which has so often 
marked your decisions, will allow them their due v>^eight 
and effect ; and that you will never suffer difficulties, how- 
ever formidable in appearance, or however fashionable 
the error on which they may be founded, to drive you 
into the gloomy and perilous scenes into which the advo- 
cates for discussion would conduct you. Hearken not 
to the unnatural voice which tells you that the peo- 
ple of America, knit together as they are by so many cords 
of affection, can no longer live together as members of the 
same family ; can no longer continue the mutual guardi- 
ans of their mutual happiness ; can no longer be fellow cit- 
izens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. 
Hearken not to the voice, which petulantly tells you, that 
the form of government recommended for your adoption, is 
a novelty in the political world ; that it never yet has had a 
place in the theories of the wildest projectors ; that it rashly 
attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my 
countrymen ; shut your ears against this unhallowed lan- 
;guage. Shut your heart against the poison which it con- 



36 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

veys : the kindred blood which flows in the veins of Amer- 
ican citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in 
defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their union, and 
excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, 
enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, 
the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all pro- 
jects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in 
pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our 
happiness. But why is the experiment of an extended re- 
public to be rejected, merely because it may comprise 
what is new ? Is it not the glory of the people of America, 
that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions 
of former times and other nations, they have not suffgired 
a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, 
to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the 
knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their 
own experience ? To this manly spirit, posterity will be 
indebted for the possession, and the world for the exam- 
ple, of the numerous innovations displayed on the Ar?eri- 
can theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. 
Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the 
revolution, for which a precedent could not be discovered, 
no government established of which an exact model did 
not present itself, the people of the United States might, 
at this moment, have been numbered among the melan- 
choly victims of misguided councils ; must, at best, have 
been laboring under the weight of some of those forms 
which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. 
Happily for America, happily we trust for the whole hu- 
man race, they pursued a new and more noble course. 
They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in 
the annals of human society. They reared the fabric of 
governments which have no model on the face of the 
globe. They formed the design of a great confederacy, 
which it is incumbent on their successors to improve 
and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, no 
wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the 
structure of the union, this was the most difficult to be ex- 
ecuted ; this is the work which has been new modelled 
by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which 
you are now to deliberate and to decide. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 37 

ON SLAVERY. RANDOLPH. 

Permit me, now, Sir, to call your attention to the sub- 
ject of our black population. I will touch this subject as 
tenderly as possible. It is with reluctance that I touch it 
at all ; but in cases of great emergency, the state physi- 
cian must not be deterred by a sickly, hysterical humanity, 
from probing the wound of his patient : he must not be 
withheld by a fastidious and mistaken delicacy from repre- 
senting his true situation to his friends, or even to the 
sick man himself, when the occasion calls for it. What is 
the situation of the slaveholding states .'* During the war 
of the revolution, so fixed were their habits of subordina- 
tion, that while the whole country was overrun by the en- 
emy, who invited them to desert, no fear was ever enter- 
tained of an insurrection of the slaves. During a war of 
seven years, with our country in possession of the enemy, 
no such danger was ever apprehended. But should we, 
therefore, be unobservant spectators of the progress of 
society within the last twenty years ; of the silent, though 
powerful change wrought, by time and chance, upon its 
composition and temper ? When the fountains of the 
great deep of abomination were broken up, even the poor 
slaves did not escape the general deluge. The French 
revolution has polluted even them. Nay, there have not 
been wanting men in this house, — witness our legislative 
Legendre, the butcher, who once held a seat here, to 
preach upon this floor these imprescriptible rights to a 
crowded audience of blacks in the galleries ; teaching 
them, that they are equal to their masters 5 in other words, 
advising them to cut their throats. Similar doctrines have 
been disseminated by pedlars from New England and 
elsewhere, throughout the southern country : and masters 
have been found so infatuated, as by their lives and con- 
versation, by a general contempt of order, morality, and 
religion, unthinkingly to cherish these seeds of self-de- 
struction to them and their families. What has been the 
consequence ? Within the last ten years, repeated alarms 
of insurrection among the slaves ; some of them awful in- 
deed. From the spreading of this infernal doctrine, the 
whole southern country has been thrown into a state of inr- 
4 



38 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

security. Men, dead to the operation of moral causes^ 
have taken away from the poor slave his habits of loyalty 
and obedience to his master, which lightened his servi- 
tude by a double operation ; beguiling his own cares and 
disarming his master's suspicions and severity ; and now, 
like true empirics in politics, you are called upon to trust 
to the mere physical strength of the fetter which holds 
him in bondage. You have deprived him of all moral re- 
straint ; you have tempted him to eat of the fruit of the 
tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect him in wicked- 
ness ; you have opened his eyes to his nakedness ; you 
have armed his nature against the hand that has fed, that 
has clothed him, that has cherished him in sickness ; that 
hand, which before he became a pupil of your school, he 
had been accustomed to press with respectful affection. 
You have done all this — and then show him the gibbet 
and the wheel, as incentives to a sullen, repugnant obe- 
dience. God forbid. Sir, that the southern states should 
ever see an enemy on their shores, *with these infernal 
principles of French fraternity in the van. While talking 
of taking Canada, some of us are shuddering for our own 
safety at home. I speak from facts, when I say, that the 
night-bell never tolls for fire in Richmond, that the mother 
does not hug her infant more closely to her bosom. I 
have been a witness of some of the alarms in the capital 
of Virginia. 



EXTRACT FROM MR PINKNEy's SPEECH UPON THE PETITION 
FOR THE RELIEF OF THE OPPRESSED SLAVES IN THE LEGIS- 
LATURE OF MARYLAND.— *1788. 

Sir— Let us figure to ourselves, for a moment, one of 
these unhappy victims, more informed than the rest, plead- 
ing, at the bar of this house, the cause of himself and his 
fellow suj^erera ; What would be the language of this ora- 
tor of i>j^ture ? Thus, my imagination tells me, he would 
address u$. 

* We belong, by the policy of our country, to our mas- 
ters, and submit to our rigorous destiny. We do not ask 
you to divest them of their property, because we are con- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 39 

scious you have not the power ; we do not entreat you to 
compel an emancipation of us or our posterity, because 
justice to your fellow citizens forbids it ; we only suppli- 
cate you not to arrest the gentk arm of humanity when it 
may be stretched forth in our behalf; not to wage hostili- 
ties against that moral or religious conviction, which may 
at any time incline our masters to give freedom to us, or 
our unoffending offspring ; not to interpose legislative ob- 
stacles to the course of voluntary manumission. Thus 
shall you neither violate the right of your people, nor en- 
danger the quiet of the community, while you vindicate 
your public councils from the imputation of cruelty and the 
stigma of causeless, unprovoked oppression. We have 
never,' would he argue, ' rebelled against our masters ; 
we have never thrown your government into a ferment by 
struggles to regain the independence of our fathers. We 
have yielded our necks submissive to the yoke, and, with- 
out a murmur, acquiesced in the privation of our native 
rights. We conjure you, then, in the name of the com- 
mon parent of mankind, reward us not, for this long and 
patient acquiescence, by shutting up the main avenues to 
our liberation, by withholding from us the poor privilege 
of benefitting by the kind indulgence, the generous inten- 
tions of our superiors.' 

What could we answer to arguments like these .'* Silent 
and peremptory, we might reject the application ; but no 
words couid justify the deed. 

In vain should we resort to apologies, grounded on the 
fallacious suggestions of a cautious and timid policy. I 
would as soon believe the incoherent tale of a schoolboy, 
who should tell me he had been frightened by a ghost, as 
that the grant of this permission ought in any degree to 
alarm us. Are we apprehensive, that these men will be- 
come more dangerous by becoming free ? Are we alarm- 
ed, lest, by being admitted to the enjoyment of civil rights, 
they will be inspired with a. deadly enmity against the 
rights of others } Strange, unaccountable paradox ! How 
much more rational would it be, to argue, that the natural 
«nemy of the privileges of freemen, is he who is robbed of 
them himself! In him the foul demon of jealousy con- 
verts the sense of his own debasement into a rancorous 
Jbiatred for the more auspicious f^tes of others, while from 



40 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

him, whom you have raised from the degrading situation 
of a slave, whom you have restored to that rank, in the 
order of the universe, which the maHgnity of his fortune 
prevented him from attaining before ; from such a man, 
(unless his soul be ten thousand times blacker than his 
complexion,) you may reasonably hope for all the happy 
effects of the warmest gratitude and love. 

Sir, let us not limit our views to the short period of a 
life in being ; let us extend them along the continuous line 
of endless generations yet to come. How will the millions, 
that now teem in the womb of futurity, and whom your 
present laws would doom to the curse of perpetual bond- 
age, feel the inspiration of gratitude to those, whose sacred 
love of liberty shall have opened the door to their admis- 
sion within the pale of freedom .'* Dishonorable to the 
species is the idea, that they would ever prove injurious 
to our interests. Released from the shackles of slavery, 
by the justice of government, and the bounty of individu- 
als, the want of fidelity and attachment, would be next to 
impossible. 

Sir, when we talk of policy, it would be well for us to 
reflect, whether pride is not at the bottom of it ; whether 
we do not feel our vanity and self-consequence wounded 
at the idea of a dusky African, participating, equally with 
ourselves, in the rights of human nature, and rising to a 
level with us, from the lowest point of degradation. Pre- 
judices of this kind. Sir, are often so powerful, as to per- 
suade us, that whatever countervails them, is the extremity 
of folly, and that the peculiar path of wisdom, is that 
which leads to their gratification. But it is for us to be 
superior to the influence of such ungenerous motives ; it is 
for us to reflect, that whatever the complexion, however 
ignoble the ancestry, or uncultivated the mind, one uni- 
versal father gave being to them and us ; and, with that 
being, conferred the unalienable rights of the species. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 41 



QUESTION. FEB. 9, 1820. 



Mr. Chairman — In the effort I have made to submit to 
the committee my views of this question, it has been im- 
possible to escape entirely the influence of the sensation 
that pervades this house. Yet I have no such apprehen- 
sions as have been expressed. The question is indeed an 
important one ; but its importance is derived altogether 
from its connexion with the extension indefinitely, of negro 
slavery, over a land which I trust Providence has destin- 
ed for the labour and support of freemen. I have no fear 
that this question, much as it has agitated the country, is 
to produce any fatal division, or even to generate a nev/ 
organization of parties. It is not a question upon which 
we ought to indulge unreasonable apprehensions, or yield 
to the counsels of fear. It concerns ages to come and 
and millions to be born. It is, as it were, a question of a 
new political creation, and it is for us, under heaven, to 
say, what shall be its condition. If we impose the restric- 
tion, it will, I hope, be finally imposed. But, if hereafter it 
should be found right to remove it, and the state consent, 
we can remove it. Admit the state without the restriction, 
the power is gone forever, and with it are forever gone all 
the efforts that have been made by the non-slave-holding 
states, to repress and limit the sphere of slavery, and enlarge 
and extend the blessings of freedom. With it, perhaps, is 
gone forever, the power of preventing the traffic in slaves, 
tbat inhuman and detestable traffic, so long a disgrace to 
Christendom. In future and in no very distant times, con- 
venience, and profit, and necessity, may be found as avail- 
able pleas as they formerly were, and for the luxury of 
slaves, we shall again involve ourselves in the sin of the 
trade. We must not presume too much upon the strength 
of our resolutions. Let every man, who has been accus- 
tomed to the indulgence, ask himself if it is not a luxury 
— a tempting luxury, which solicits him strongly and at 
every moment. The prompt obedience, the ready atten- 
tion, the submissive and humble, but eager eflfort to antici- 
pate command — how flattering to our pride, how soothing 
to our indolence ! To the members from the south I ap- 
peal, to know whether they will suffer any temporary in- 
4* 



42 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

convenience, or any speculative advantage to expose us 
to the danger. To those of the north, no appeal can be ne- 
cessary. To both, I can most sincerely say, that as I know 
my own views on this subject to be free from any unworthy 
motive, so will I believe, that they likewise have no object but 
the common good of our common country ; and that nothing 
would have given me more heartfelt satisfaction, than that 
the present proposition should have originated in the same 
qjiarter to which we are said to be indebted for the ordi- 
nancc-of 1787. Then, indeed, would Virginia have ap- 
peared in even more than her wonted splendour, and 
spreading out the scroll of her services, would have be- 
held none of them with greater pleasure, than that service 
which began, by pleading the cause of humanity in remon- 
strances against the slave trade, while she was yet a colo- 
ny, and, embracing her own act of abolition, and the ordi- 
nance of 1787, terminated in the restriction of Missouri. 
Consider, what a foundation our predecessors have laid ! 
And behold, with the blessing of Providence, how the work 
has prospered ! What is there, in ancient or in modern 
times, that can be compared with the growth and prosperi- 
ty of the states formed out of the Northern Territory ? 
When Europeans reproach us with our negro slavery, 
when they contrast our republican boast and pretensions 
with the existence of this condition among us, we have our 
answer ready, — it is to you we owe this evil — you planted 
it here, and it has taken such root in the soil we have hot 
power to eradicate it. Then, turning to the west, and di- 
recting their attention to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, we can 
proudly tell them, these are the offspring of our policy and 
our laws, these are the free productions of the constitution 
of the United States. But, if beyond this smiling region, 
they should descry another dark spot upon the face of the 
new creation — another scene of negro slavery, established 
by ourselves, and spreading continually towards the fur- 
ther ocean, what shall we say then ? No, Sir, let us fol- 
low up the work our ancestors have begun. Let us give 
to the world a new pledge of our sincerity. Let the stan- 
dard of freedom be planted in Missouri, by the hands of 
the constitution, and let its banner wave over the heads of 
none but freemen — men retaining the image impressed 
upon them by their Creator, and dependent upon none but 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 43 

Godfand the laws. Then, as our republican states extend, 
republican principles will go hand in hand with repub- 
lican practice — the love of liberty with the sense of jus- 
tice. Then, Sir, the dawn, beaming from the constitu- 
tion, which now illuminates Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, 
will spread with increasing brightness to the further west, 
till in its brilliant lustre, the dark spot, which now rests on 
our country, shall be forever hid from sight. Industry, 
arts, commerce, knowledge, will flourish with plenty and 
contentment for ages to come, and the loud chorus of uni- 
versal freedom, re-echo from the Pacific to the Atlantic, 
the great truths of the declaration of independence. Then, 
too, our brethren of the south, if they sincerely wish it, 
may scatter their emancipated slaves through this bound- 
less region, and our own country, at length, be happily 
freed forever from the foul stain and curse of slavery. And 
if, (may it be far, very far distant ! ) intestine commotion 
— civil dissension — division, should happen — we shall not 
leave our posterity exposed to the combined horrors of 
a civil and a servile war. If any man still hesitate, influ- 
enced by some temporary motive of convenience, or ease, 
or profit, I charge him to think what our fathers have suf- 
fered for us, and then to ask his heart, if he can be faith- 
less- to the obligation he owes to posterity .'' 



BXLTRACT FROM GOVERNEUR MORRIS'S SPEECH ON THE NAVI- 
GATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. FEB. 25, 1803. 

Mr. President — This subject is of great importance, as 
it relates to other countries, and still greater to our own : 
yet we must decide on grounds uncertain, because they 
depend on circumstances not yet arrived. And when we 
attempt to penetrate into futurity, after exerting the ut- 
most powers of reason, aided by all the lights, which ex- 
perience could acquire, our clearest conceptions are in- 
volved in doubt. A thousand things may happen, which 
it is impossible to conjecture, and which will influence the 
course of events. The wise Governor of all things hath 
hidden the future from the ken of our feeble understand- 
ing. In committing ourselves, therefore, to the examina- 



44 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

tion of what may hereafter arrive, we hazard reputation on 
contingencies we cannot command. And when events 
shall be past, we shall be judged by them, and not by the 
reasons which we may now advance. 

There are many subjects which it is not easy to under- 
stand, but it is always easy to misrepresent, and when ar- 
guments cannot be controverted, it is not difficult to ca- 
lumniate motives. That, which cannot be confuted may 
be misstated. The present intentions may be blackened 
by malice ; and envy will ever foster the foulest im- 
putations. This calumny is among the sore evils of our 
country. It began with our earliest success in 1773, and 
has gone on, with accelerated velocity and increasing 
force, to the present hour. It is no longer to be check- 
ed, nor will it terminate but in that sweep of general de- 
struction, to which it tends with a step as swift as time, 
and fatal as death. I know, that what I utter will be mis- 
understood, misrepresented, deformed, and distorted ; but 
we must do our duty. This, I believe, is the last scene of 
my public life ; and it shall, like those which have preced- 
ed it, be performed with candour and truth. Yes, my no- 
ble friends, we shall soon part to meet no more. But, 
however separated, and wherever dispersed, we know,* 
that we are united by just principle and true sentiment — 
a sentiment, my country, ever devoted to you, which will 
expire only with expiring life, and beat in the last pulsa- 
tion of our hearts ! 

Mr. President, my object is peace. I could assign ma- 
ny reasons to show, that this declaration is sincere. But 
can it be necessary to give this senate any other assurance 
than my word ? Notwithstanding the acerbity of tempers 
which results from party strife, gentlemen will believe me 
on my word. I will not pretend, like my honorable col- 
league, to describe to you, the waste, the ravages, and the 
horrors of war. I have not the same harmonious periods, 
nor the same musical tones ; neither shall I boast of chris- 
tian charity, nor attempt to display that ingenuous glow of 
benevolence, so decorous to the cheek of youth, which 
gave a vivid tint to every sentence he uttered ; and was, 
if possible, as impressive even as his eloquence. But, 
though we possess not the same pomp of words, our hearts 
are not insensible to the woes of humanity. We can feel 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 45 

for the misery of plundered towns, the conflagration of de- 
fenceless villages, and the devastation of cultured fields. 
Turning from these features of general distress, we can 
enter the abodes of private affliction, and behold the widow 
weeping, as she traces in the pledges of connubial affec- 
tion, the resemblance of him whom she has lost forever. 
We see the aged matron bending over the ashes of her 
son, he was her darling ; for he was generous and brave : 
and therefore his spirit led him to the field in defence of 
his country. Vv e can observe another oppressed with un- 
utterable anguish ; condemned to conceal her affection ; 
forced to hide that passion, which is at once the torment 
and delight of life ; she learns, that those eyes, which 
beamed with sentiment, are closed in death ; and his lip, 
the ruby harbinger of joy, lies pale and cold, the miserable 
appendage of a mangled corse. Hard, hard indeed, must 
be that heart, which can be insensible to scenes like these; 
and bold the man, who dare present to the Almighty Fa- 
ther, a conscience crimsoned with the blood of his children! 
Yes, Sir, we wish for peace ; but how is that blessing 
to be preserved ? I shall repeat here a sentiment I have 
oflen had occasion to express. In my opinion, there is 
nothing worth fighting for, but national honor : for, in the 
national honor, is involved the national independence. I 
know, that a state may find itself in such unpropitious cir- 
cumstances, that prudence may force a wise government 
to conceal the sense of indignity. But the insult should be 
engraven on tablets of brass, with a pencil of steel. And 
when that time and chance, which happen" to all, shall 
bring forward the favorable moment, then let the avenging 
arm strike home. It is by avowing and maintaining this 
stern principle of honor, that peace can be preserved. 
But let it not be supposed, that any thing I say, has the 
slightest allusion to the injuries sustained from France, 
while suffering in the pangs of her revolution. As soon 
should I upbraid a sick man for what he might have done 
in the paroxysms of disease. Nor is this a new senti- 
ment : it was felt and avowed at the time when these 
wrongs were heaped upon us, and I appeal for the proof 
to the files of your secretary of state. The destinies of 
France were then in the hands of monsters. By the de- 
cree of Heaven she was broken on the wheel, in the face • 



46 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

of the world, to warn mankind of her folly and madness. 
But these scenes have passed away. On the throne of 
the Bourbons, is seated the first of the Gallic CaBsars. At 
the head of that gallant nation is the great, the greatest 
man, of the present age. It becomes us well to consider 
his situation. The things, he has achieved, compel him 
to the achievement of things more great. In his vast ca- 
reer, we must soon become objects to command attention. 
We too, in our turn, must contend or submit. By submis- 
sion we may indeed have peace, alike precarious and ig- 
nominious. But is this the peace which we ought to seek ? 
Will this satisfy the just expectation of our country ? No 
Let us have peace, permanent, secure, and, if I may use 
the term, independent — peace, which depends not on the 
pity of others, but on our own force. Let us have the only 
peace worth having — a peace consistent with honor. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. BURKe's SPEECH ON ECONOMICAL 
REFORM. 

Mr. Speaker — I enter perfectly into the nature and 
consequences of my attempt ; and I advance to it with a 
tremor that shakes me to the inmost fibre of my frame. 
I feel that I engage in a business, in itself most ungracious, 
totally wide of the course of prudent conduct ; and I re- 
ally think, the most completely adverse that can be imag- 
ined to the natural turn and temper of my own mind. I 
know, that all parsimony is of a quality approaching to 
unkindness ; and that (on some person or other) every 
reform must operate as a sort of punishment. Indeed 
the whole class of the severe and restrictive virtues, are 
at a market almost too high for humanity. What is worse, 
there are very few of those virtues which are not capable 
of being imitated, and even outdone in many of their 
most striking effects, by the worst of vices. Malig- 
nity and envy will carve much more deeply, and finish 
much more sharply, in the work of retrenchment, than 
frugality and providence. I do not, therefore, wonder, 
that gentlemen have kept away from such a task, as well 
from good nature as from prudence. Private feeling 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 47 

might, indeed, be overborne by legislative reason ; and a 
man of a long-sighted and strong nerved humanity, might 
bring himself not so much to consider from whom he takes 
a superfluous enjoyment, as for whom in the end he may 
preserve the absolute necessaries of life. 

But it is much more easy to reconcile this measure to 
humanity, than to bring it to any agreement with prudence. 
I do not mean that little, selfish, pitiful, bastard thing, 
which sometimes goes by the name of a family in which it 
is not legitimate, and to which it is a disgrace ; I mean 
.even that public and enlarged prudence, which, apprehen- 
sive of being disabled from rendering acceptable services 
to the world, withholds itself from those that are invidious. 

Besides this. Sir, the private enemies to be made in all 
attempts of this kind are innumerable ; and their enmity 
will be the more bitter, and the more dangerous too, be- 
cause a sense of dignity will oblige them to conceal the 
cause of their resentment. Very few men of great fami- 
lies and extensive connexions, but will feel the smart of a 
cutting reform, in some close relation, some bosom friend, 
some pleasant acquaintance, some dear protected depend- 
ant. Emolument is taken from some ; patronage from 
others ; objects of pursuit from all. Men forced into an 
involuntary independence, will abhor the authors of a 
blessing which in their eyes has so very near a resem- 
blance to a curse. When officers are removed, and the 
offices remain, you may set the gratitude of some against 
the anger of others ; you may oppose the friends you 
oblige against the enemies you provoke. But services of 
the present sort create no attachments. The individual 
good felt in a public benefit, is comparatively so small, 
comes round through such an involved labyrinth of intri- 
cate and tedious revolutions ; whilst a present, personal 
detriment is so heavy, where it falls, and so instant in its 
operation, that the cold commendation of a public advan- 
tage never was, and never will be, a match for the quick 
sensibility of a private loss : and you may depend upon it, 
Sir, that when many people have an interest in railing, 
sooner or later, they will bring a considerable degree of 
unpopularity upon any measure. So that, for the present 
at least, the reformation will operate against the reform- 



48 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

ers ; and revenge (as against them at the least) will pro- 
duce all the effects of corruption. 

Nothing, you know, is more common, than for men to 
wish, and call loudly too, for a reformation, who, when it 
arrives, do by no means like the severity of its aspect. 
Reformation is one of those pieces which must be put at 
some distance in order to please. Its greatest favourers 
love it better in the abstract than in the substance. When 
any old prejudice of their own, or any interest that they 
value, is touched, they become scrupulous, they become 
captious, and every man has his separate exception. Some 
pluck out the black hairs, some the grey ; one point must 
be given up to one ; another point must be yielded to an- 
other ; nothing is suffered to prevail upon its own princi- 
ple : the whole is so frittered down and disjointed, that 
scarcely a trace of the original scheme remains ! Thus, 
between the resistance of power, and the un systematical 
process of popularity, the undertakers and the undertak- 
ing are both exposed, and the poor reformer is hissed off 
the stage, both by friends and foes. 



PEHORATION TO MR BURKe's SPEECH ON THE IMPEACHMENT 
or WARREN HASTINGS. 

My Lords — None but wicked, bloody, and rapacious 
persons can be employed to excute such a task. There- 
fore, I charge Mr. Hastings — and we shall charge him 
when we come to bring it more home to him — I charge 
him with having destroyed the whole system of govern- 
ment, which he had no right to destroy, in the six provin- 
cial councils — I charge him with having delegated away 
that power, which the act of parliament had directed him 
to preserve unalienably in himself — I charge him with 
having formed an ostensible committee to be instruments 
and tools at the enormous expense of £62,000 a year — I 
charge him with having appointed a person to whom those 
tools were to be subservient, a man, whose name, to his 
own knowledge, by his own general recorded official 
transactions, every thing that can make a man known, ab- 
horred, and detested, was stamped with infamy ; with giv- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 49 

ing him this whole power, which he had thus separated from 
the council general, and from the provincial councils — I 
charge him with taking bribes. I charge him that lie has 
not done that bribe duty with fidelity ; for there is some- 
thing like a fidelity in the transactions of the very worst of 
men — I charge him with having robbed those people of 
whom he took the bribes — I charge him with having alien- 
ated the fortunes of widows — I charge him with having, 
without right, title, or purchase, taken away the lands of 
orphans, and given them to the very person under whose 
protection those orphans were — I charge him with giving 
those* very zemindaries to the most wicked of persons ; 
knowing his wickedness ; with having committed to him 
that great country, and with having wasted the country, 
destroyed the landed interest, cruelly harassed the peas- 
ants, burnt their houses, and destroyed their crops — I 
charge him with having tortured and dishonored their 
persons, and destroyed the honor of the whole female 
race of that country. This I charge him in the name of 
the commons of England. 

Now, my lords, what is it in this last moment that we 
want besides the cause of justice — the cause of oppressed 
princes, of undone women of the first rank, of desolated 
provinces, and of wasted kingdoms ? Do you want a crim- 
inal, my lords ? When was there so much iniquity applied 
to any one ? My lords, if a prosecutor you want, the com- 
mons of Great Britain appear to prosecute. You have 
before you the commons of Great Britain as prosecutors : 
and I helieve, my lords, I may venture to say, that the sun 
in his beneficent progress does not behold a more glorious 
sight, than to see those that are separated by the material 
bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bond of social 
and natural humanity, and all the commons of England re- 
senting as their own, the indignities and cruelties that have 
been offered to the people of India. My lords, permit ^e to 
add, neither do we want a tribunal ; for a greater tribunal 
than the present, no example of antiquity, nor aiiy thing in 
the world can supply. 

My lords, these are our securities ; we rest upon them ; 
we reckon upon them : and we commit, with confidence, 
the interests of India and humanity to your hands. There- 
fore it is, that by the orders of the house of commons of 
5 



50 THE NEW SPEAKER 

Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes 
and misdemeanors. 

I impeach him in the name of the commons of Great 
Britain in parliament assembled, whose parliamentary 
trust he has abused. 

I impeach him in the name of the commons of Great 
Britain, whose] national character he has dishonored. 

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose 
laws, rights, and liberties, he has subverted. 

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose 
property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid 
waste and desolate. 

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, 
which he has cruelly outraged, injured and oppressed, iri 
both sexes. And I impeach him in the name and by the 
virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equal- 
ly to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation in 
the world. 



LAMENTATION FOR THE LOSS OF A SON. BURKE. 

Had it pleased God to coiitirme to me the hopes of suc- 
cession, I should have been, according to my mediocrity, 
and the mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of founder 
of a family : I should have left a son, Avho, in all the points 
ill which personal merit can be viewed, in science, in erudi- 
tion, in genius, in taste, in honor, in generosity, in humani- 
ty, in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal accomplish- 
ment, would not have shewn himself inferior to the Duke 
of Bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his line. 
His grace very soon would have wanted all plausibility in 
his attack upon that provi^n which belonged more to 
niipe ftian to me. He would soon have supplied every 
deficiency, and symmetrized every disproportion. It would 
not have been for that successor to resort to any stagnant, 
wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in my ancestry. He 
had in himself a salient, living spring, of generous and 
manly action,. Every day he lived he Avould have repur- 
chased, the touiity of the crown, and ten times more, if 
ten times more Jie had received. He was made a public 



^ 



THE NEW SPEAKEJ^. 51 

creature ; and had no enjoyment whatever, but in the per- 
formance of some duty. At this exigent moment, the loss 
of a finished man is not easily supplied. 

But a disposer, whose power we are little able to resist, 
and whose wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute ; has 
ordained it in another manjier, and (whatever my querulous 
weakness might suggest) a far better. The storm has 
gone over me ; and I lie like one of those old oaks which 
the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped 
of all my honors ; I am torn up by the roots, and lie pros- 
trate on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, I most 
unfeignedly recognise the divine justice, and, in some de- 
gree, submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before 
God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks 
of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is 
proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of our 
irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust 
and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for 
reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal as- 
perity, those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his 
dunghill, to read moral, political, and economical lectures 
on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my ene- 
mies in the gate. Indeed, my lord, I greatly deceive my- 
self, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse 
wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. 
This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury ; it is a 
privilege : it is an indulgence for those who are at their 
ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we 
are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. 
It is an instinct : and under the direction of reason, instinct 
is always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They 
who ought to have succeeded me have gone before me. 
They, who should have been to me as posterity, are in the 
place of ancestors. I ovv'e to the dearest relation (which 
ever must subsist in memory )*that act of piety, which he 
would have performed to me ; I owe it to him to shew that 
he was not descended, as the Duke of Bedford would have 
it, from an unworthy parent. 



52 THE NEW SPEAKER, 

DESCRIPTION OF THE BALLOT BY BEANS. BURKET, 

But, my lords, it seems all these defects in point of Re- 
cusation, of defence, of trial, and of judgment, as 'the in- 
genious gentlemen have argued, are cured by the magical 
virtue of those beans, by whose agency the whole business 
must be conducted. 

nlf the law had permitted a single word to be exchanged 
between the parties, the learned counsel confess that 
much difficulty might arise in the events which I have 
stated ; but they have found out that all these difficulties 
are prevented or removed by the beans and the ballot. 
According to these gentlemen, we are to suppose on€! of 
those unshaven demtv^ogues, whom the learned counsel 
have so humorously described, rising m the commons 
when the name of Aldernian James is sent down ; he be- 
gins by throwing out a torrent of seditious invective 
against the servile profligacy and lickerish venality of the 
board of aldermen — this he does by beans :— having thus 
previously inflamed the passions of his fellows, and some- 
what exhausted his own, his judgment collects the reins 
that floated on the neck of his imagination, and he be- 
comes grave, compressed, sententious, and didactick ; he 
lays down the law of personal disability, and corporate 
criminality, and corporate forfeiture, with great precision, 
with sound emphasis, and good discretion, to the great de- 
light and edification of the assembly — and this he does by 
beans. He then proceeds, my lords, to state the specific 
charge against the unfortunate candidate for approbation, 
with all the artifice of malignity and accusation ; scalding 
the culprit in tears of affected pity, bringing forward the 
blackness of imputed guilt through the varnish of simulat- 
ed commiseration ; bewaihng the horror of his crime, that 
he may leave it without exc«se ; and invoking the sympa- 
thy of his judges, that he may steel them against compas- 
sion — and this, my lords, the unshaved demagogue doth 
by beans. The accused doth not appear in person, for he 
cannot leave his companions, nor by attorney, for his at- 
torney could not be admitted — but he appears and defends 
by beans. At first, humble and dep'recatory, he conciliates 
the attention of his judges to his defence, by giving them to 
hope that it may be without effect j he does not alarm 



THE NEW SPExiKER. 53 

liiem by any indiscreet assertion that the charge is false, 
but he sHdes uptMi them arguments to shew it improbable ; 
by degrees, however, he gains upon the assembly, and de- 
nies and refutes, and recriminates, and retorts — all by 
beans, — until at last he challenges his accuser to a trial, 
which is accordingly had, in the course of which the de- 
positions are taken, the facts tried, the legal doubts expos- 
ed and explained — by beans ; — and in the same manner 
the law is settled with an exactness and authority that re- 
mains a record of jurisprudence, for the information of fu- 
ture ages ; while at the same time the ' harmony ' of the 
metropolis is attuned by the marvellous temperament of 
jarring discord ; and the ' good will ' of the citizens is se- 
cured by the indissoluble bond of mutual crimination, and 
reciprocal abhorrence. 

Jby this happy mode of decision, one hundred and forty- 
six causes of rejection, (for of so many do the commons 
consist, each of whom must be entitled to allege a distinct 
cause,) are tried in the course of a single day with satis- 
faction to all parties. 

With what surprise and delight must the heart of the 
fortunate inventor have glowed, when he discovered those 
wonderful instruments of wisdom and of eloquence, 
which, without being obliged to commit the precious ex- 
tracts of science, or persuasion, to the faithless and fragile 
vehicles of words or phrases, can serve every process of 
composition or abstraction of ideas, and every exigency of 
discourse or argumentation, by the resistless strength and 
infinite variety of beans, white or black, or boiled or raw ; 
displaying all the magic of their powers in the mysterious 
exertion of dumb investigation and mute discussion ; of 
speechless objection, and tongue-tied refutation ! 

Nor should it be forgotten, my lords, that this noble dis- 
covery does no little honor to the sagacity of the present 
age, by explaining a doubt that has for so many centuries 
perplexed the labor of philosophic inquiry ; and furnish- 
ing the true reason why the pupils of Pythagoras were 
prohibited the use of beans : it cannot, I think, my lords, 
be doubted, that the great author of the metempsychosis 
found out that those mystic powers of persuasion, which 
vulgar naturalists supposed to remain lodged in minerals, 
5* 



54 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

or fossils, had really transnagrated into beans ; and he 
could not, therefore, but see that it would have been fruit- 
less to preclude bis disciples from mere oral babbling, 
unless he had also debarred them from the indulgence of 
vegetable loquacky. 



SPEECH OF MR. BURER ON DECLINING THE POLL, 

Gentlemen, I decline the election. — It has ever been 
my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my 
efforts and my objects. I have not canvassed the whole 
of this city in form. But I have taken such a view of it 
as satisfies my own mind, that your choice will not ulti- 
mately fall upon me. Your city, gentlemen, is in a state 
of miserable distraction ; and 1 am resolved to withdraw 
whatever share my pretensions have had in its unhappy 
divisions. I have not been in haste ; I have tried all pru- 
dent means ; I have waited for the effects of all contin* 
gfencies. 

I am not in the least surprised, nor in the least angry at 
this view of things. I have read the book of hfe for a 
long time, and I have read other books a little. Nothing 
has happened to me, but what has happened to men much 
bette^r than me, and in times and in nations full as good as 
the age and country that we live in. To say that I am no 
way concerned, would be neither decent nor true. The 
representation of Bristol was an object on many accounts 
dear to me ; and I certainly should very far prefer it to 
any other in the kingdom. Aly habits are made to it ; and 
it is in general more unpleasant to be rejected after long 
trial, than not to be chosen at all. 

But, gentlemen, I will see nothing except your former 
kindness, and I will give way to no other sentiments than 
those of gratitude. From the bottom of my heart I thank 
you for what you have done to me. You have given me 
a long term, which is now expired. I have performed the 
conditioiiis, and enjoyed all the profits to the full ; and I 
now surrender your estate into your hands without being 
in a, single tile,. or a single stone impaired or wasted by 
my use. I have served the public for fifteen years. I 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 55 

have served you in particular for six. What is passed is 
well stored. It is safe, and out of the power of fortune. 
What is to come, is in wiser hands than ours ; and He, in 
whose hands it is, best knows whether it is best for you 
and me that I should be in parliament, or even in the 
world. 

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to 
us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about 
any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy 
gentleman, who has been snatched from us at the moment 
of the election, and in the middle of the contest, while 
his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours, 
has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shad- 
ows we pursue. It has been usual for a candidate, who 
declines, to take his leave by a letter to the sheriffs ; but I 
received your trust in the face of day ; and in the face of 
day I accept your dismission. I am not, — I am not at all 
ashamed to look upon you ; nor can my presence discom- 
pose the order of business here. I humoly and respect- 
fully take my leave of the sheriffs, the candidates, and the 
electors ; wishing heartily that the choice may be for the 
best, at a time which calls, if ever time did call, for ser- 
vice that is not nominal. It is no plaything you are about. 
I tremble when I consider the trust I have presumed to 
ask. I confided too mu<;h in my intentions. They were 
really fair and upright ; and I am bold to say, that I ask 
no ill thing for you, when, on parting from this place, I 
pray that, whomever you choose to succeed me, he may 
resemble me exactly in all things, except in my abilities to 
servej and my fortune to please you. 



PART OF MR. AMES S^ SPEECH ON THE BRITISH TREATY. 

Mr. Speaker — If any, against all these pi'oofs, should 
maintain, that the peace with- the Indians will be stable 
without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. From 
arguments calculated to produce conviction, I will appeal 
directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether 
it is not already planted there .'' I resort especially to the 
eoftvictions of the western getttknaen, whether, supposing 



66 THE NEW SPEAItER. 

no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security ? 
Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, 
under these circumstances, will prove firm ? No, Sir, it 
will not be peace, but a sword ; it will be no better than a 
lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk. 

On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could 
find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to 
my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remon- 
strance, it should reach every log-house beyond the 
mountains. I would say to the inhabitants. Wake from 
your false security : your cruel dangers, your more cruel 
apprehensions, are soon to be renewed : the wounds, yet 
unhealed, are to be torn open again : in the day time, 
your path through the woods will be ambushed ; the dark- 
ness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwel- 
lings. You are a father — the blood of your sons shall 
fatten your corn field ; you are a mother — the war whoop 
shall wake the sleep of the cradle. 

On this subject you need not suspect any deception on 
your feelings : it is a spectacle of horror, which cannot be 
overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will 
speak a language, compared with which all I have said, or 
can say, will be poor and frigid. 

Will it be whispered, that the treaty has made me anew 
chan^pion for the protection of the frontiers. It is known, 
that my voice as well as vote have been uniformly given 
in conformity with the^deas I have expressed. Protection 
is the right of the frontiers 5 it is our duty to give it. 

Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject ? 
Who will say, that I exaggerate the tendencies of our 
measures .? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this 
is idle preaching ? Will any one deny, that we are bound, 
and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn 
sanctions of duty, for the vote we give ? Are despots 
alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the 
tears and blood of their subjects ? Are republicans un- 
responsible ? Have the principles, on which you ground 
the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influ- 
ence, no binding force ? Are they merely themes of idle 
declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a 
newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue 
from the windows of the state-house ? I trust it is neither 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 5t 

too presumptuous nor too late to ask — Can you put the 
the dearest interest of society to hazard, without guilt, and 
without remorse ? 

It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not 
to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue 
from their measures. This is very true, where they are 
unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not 
unforeseen : they are so far from inevitable, we are going 
to bring them mto being by our vote : we choose the con- 
sequences, and become as justly answerable for them, as 
for the measures that we know will produce them. 

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we 
bind the victim. This day we undertake to render account 
to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make, 
to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to our 
country, and I do not deem it too serious to say, to con- 
science and to God. We are answerable ; and if duty be 
anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be 
not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves a^ 
wretched as our country. 

There is no mistake in this case, there can be none ; 
experience has already been the prophet of events, and 
the cries of our future victims have already reached us. 
The western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplain- 
ing sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the 
shade of the wilderness : it exclaims, that while one hand 
is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a toma- 
hawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that 
will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to con- 
ceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy 
that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the 
shrieks of torture : already they seem to sigh in the west- 
ern wind ; already they mingle with every echo from the 
mountains. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. HARPER's SPEECH ON RESISTING THE 
AGGRESSIONS OF FRANCE. 

When France shall at length be convinced, that we are 
firmly resolved to call forth all our resources, and exert all 



5$ TjgE NEW SPEAKER. 

oi^r strength to resist her encroachments and aggressions, 
she will soon desist from them. She need not be told what 
these resources are ; she well knows their greatness and 
extent ; she well knows that this country, if driven into a 
war, could soon become invulnerable to her attacks, and 
Could throw a most formidable and preponderating weight 
into the scale of her adversary. She will not, therefore, 
drive us to this extremity, but will desist as soon as she 
finds us determined. I have already touched on our means 
of injuring France, and of repelling her attacks ; and if 
those means were less than they are, still they might be 
rendered all-sufficient, by resolution and courage. It is 
in these that the strength of nations consists, and not in 
fleets, nor armies, nor population, nor money ; in the ' un- 
conquerable will — the courage never to submit or yield.' 
These are the true sources of national greatness ; and, to 
use the words of a celebrated writer, ' where these means 
are not wanting, all others will be found or created.' It 
was by these means that Holland, in the days of her glory, 
triumphed over the mighty power of Spain, It is by these, 
that in latter times, and in the course of the present war, 
the Swiss, a people, not half so numerous as we, and pos- 
sessing few of our advantages, have honorably maintained 
their neutrality amid the shock of surrounding states, and 
against the haughty aggressions of France herself They 
have not been without their trials. They had given refuge 
to many French emigrants, whom their vengeful and im- 
placable country had driven and pursued from state to 
state, and whom it wished to deprive of their last asylum 
in the mountains of Switzerland. The Swiss were reqiflred 
to drive them away, under the pretence that to afford 
them a retreat was contrary to the laws of neutrality. 
They at first temporized and evaded the demand : France 
insisted ; and, finding at length that evasion was useless, 
they assumed a firm attitude, and declared, that having 
aflTorded an asylum to those unfortunate exiles, which no* 
law of neutrality forbade, they would protect them in it at 
every hazard. France, finding them thus resolved, gave 
up the attempt. This was effected by that daring courage, 
which alone can make a nation great or respectable ; and 
this effect has invariably been produced by the same 
cause, in every age and every clirnjB. It was this that 



THE NEW Sl>EAKli^. 59 

made Rome the mistress of the \yorld, and Athens the 
protectress of Greece. When was it that Kome attract- 
ed most strongly the admiration of mankind, and impressed 
the deepest sentiment of fear on the hearts of her ene- 
mies f It was when seventy thousand of her sons lay 
bleeding at Cann®, and Hannibal, victorious over three 
Roman armies and tvrenty nations, was thundering at her 
gates. It was then that the young and heroic Scipio, 
having sworn on his sword in the presence of the fathers 
of the country, not to despair of the repubhc, marched 
forth at the head of a people, firmly resolved to conquer or 
die : and resolution insured them the victory. When did 
Athens appear the greatest and the most formidable ? It 
was when giving up their houses and possessions to the 
flames of the enemy, and having transferred their wives, 
their children, their aged parents, and the symbols of their 
religion on board of their fleet, they resolved to consider 
themselves as the republic, and their ships as their coun- 
try. It was then they struck that terrible blow, under 
v,-hich the greatness of Persia sunk and expired. 

These means. Sir, and many others, are in our power. 
Let us resolve to, use them, and act so as to convince 
France that we have taken the resolution, and then there is 
nothing to fear. This conviction will be to us instead of 
fleets and armies, and even more etFectual. Seeing us 
thus prepared she will not attack us. Then will she listen 
to our peaceable proposals 5 then will she accept the con- 
cessions we mean to offer. But should this offer not be 
thus gupported, should it be attended by any circumstances 
from which she can discover weakness^ distrust, or division, 
then will she reject it with scorn and derision. I view in 
the proposed amendment circumstances of this kind ; and 
for that, amoDg other reasons, shall vote against it. I 
shall vote against it, not because I am for war, but be- 
cause I am for peace ; and because I see in this amend- 
ment itself, and more especially in the course to which it 
points, the means of impeding, instead of promoting our 
pacific endeavours. And let it be remembered, that 
when we give this vote, we vote not only on the peace of 
our country, but on what is far more important, its rights 
and its honor. 



ISO THE NEW WEAKER. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION ON FRENCH AGGRESSIONS 
DELIVEREl 
iPAINE, JR. 



DELIVERED AT BOSTON, JULY 17, 1799. ROBERT TREAT 



The solemn oath of America has ascended to heaven. 
She has sworn to preserve her independence, her reHgion, 
and her laws^ or nobly perish in their defence, and be 
buried in the wrecks of her empire. To the fate of 
our governnffeiit is united the fate of our country. The 
convulsion that destroys the one, must desolate the other. 
Their destinies are* interwoven, and they must triumph ot 
fall together. Where then is the man, so hardened in 
political iniquity, as to advocate the victories of French 
arms, which would render his countrymen slaves, or to 
promote the diffusion of French principles, which would 
render them savages ? Can it be doubted, that the pike 
of a French soldier is less cruel and ferocious than the 
fraternity of a French philosopher ? Where is the youth 
in this assembly, who could, without agonized emotions, 
behold the GaUic invader hurling the brand of devasta- 
tion into the dwelHng of his father ; or with sacrilegious 
cupidity plundering the communion table of his God ? Who 
could witness, without indignant desperation, the mother, 
who bore him, inhumanly murdered, in the defence of her 
infants ? Who could hear, without frantic horror, the 
shrieks of a sister, flying from pollution, and leaping from 
the blazing roof, to impale herself on the point of a hal- 
bert ? * If any, speak, for him have I offended ! ' No, 
my fellow citizens, these scenes are never to be witnessed 
by American eyes. The soul of your ancestors still lives 
in the bosoms of their descendants ; and rather than sub- 
mit this fair land ©f their inheritance to ravage and dis- 
honor, from hoary age to helpless infancy, they will form 
one united bulwark, and oppose their breasts to the assail- 
ing foe. Not one shall survive, to be enslaved : for ere 
the tri-coloured flag shall wave over our prostrate repub- 
lic, the bones of four millions of Americans shall whiten 
the shores of their country ! This depopulated region 
shall be as desolate, as its original wilderness ; the reveg- 
etating forest shall cover the ruins of our cities ; and the 
savage shall return from the mountains, and again rear his 
hut in the abode of his forefathers. Then shall commence 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 61 

tlv3 millenium of political illumination ; and Frenchmen 
and wolves, ' one and indivisible,' nightly chaunt their bar- 
barous orgies, to celebrate the philosophick empire of 
democracy ! 

The progress of truth is slow, but irresistible. Its tem- 
perate light has at length dawned in Europe, dispelled the 
sickly vapours of illumination, and awakened the dormant 
spirit of nations. The armies and fleets of France will 
oppose its diffusion in vain. The gilt follies of her savans 
cannot divert its operations ; it will overwhelm all obsta- 
cles in its passage, like the cataract in its fall, and affect 
every region in its career, like the motion of this ^ great 
globe itself Already have the boasted conquerors of 
Italy, covered with disaster, disgrace, and defeat, retraced 
their blood-printed footsteps through the realms, they had 
desolated. Already do the nations, enslaved by their per- 
fidy, shake off their ignominious submission, and rise to 
^ break their chains on the heads of their oppressors.' 
The fictitious fabric of French glory, like the Pantheon 
at Paris, is already cracked in its dome, and will ere long 
crumble into ruins, beneath the ponderous pressure of its 
own incumbent magnificence. 



e:stract from mr. 

motion respecting peace with the french republic. 

Sa much, Sir, as to the particular argument, that the past 
conduct of our former allies ought to lead us to withhold all 
credit from their future professions. There is, however, 
another and more general argument, comprehending alike 
these and the other powers of Europe ; which, but that it 
has been stated by the honorable gentleman, I should 
really have thought scarcely worth confutation. We, 
it seems — a wise, prudent, reflecting people — are much 
struck with all the outrages France has committed upon 
the continent, but on the powers of the continent itself, no 
lasting impression has been made. Is this probable .'* Is 
it possible ? Is it in the nature of things, that the contem- 
plation of the wrongs and miseries which others have en- 
dured, should have worked a deeper impression upon our 
6 



62 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

:iainds, than the suffering of those miseries and wrongs 
lias left in the minds of those on whom they were actu- 
ally inflicted ? 

' Segnis irritant animos demissa per aures, 
Quam qaaa sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus ? ' 

Yet the echo and report of the blows by which other 
countries have fallen, are supposed to have more effect 
upon us, than the blows themselves produced upon the 
miserable victims who sunk beneath them. 

The pillage and bloody devastation of Italy strikes us 
with horror ; — but Italy, we are to believe, is contented 
with what has befallen her. The insults which are hurled by 
the French garrison from the walls of the citadel of Turin, 
rouse resentment in our breasts; but have no effect on 
the feelings of the Piedmontese. We read with indigna- 
tion of the flag of Bernadotte displayed in mockery and in- 
sult to the emperor and his subjects ; but it flaunted in the 
eyes of the people, without exciting any emotions of ha- 
tred x)r resentment. The invasion of a province of a 
friendly power, with whom they had no cause nor pretence 
for hostility, has created in us a decided detestation for 
the unprincipled hypocrisy and ambition of the directory ; 
but the Ottoman Porte sits down contented with the loss 
of Egypt ; feels no injury, and desires neither reparation 
nor revenge. And then, Sir, the wrongs of Switzerland ! 
they, too, are calculated to excite an interest here ; but 
the Swiss, no doubt, endured them with quiet resignation 
and contented humility. If, after the taking of Soleure, 
the venerable magistrates of that place ,were first hg.nded 
round the town in barbarous triumph, and afterguards, con- 
trary to all the laws of war, of nations, and nature, were 
inhumanly put to death ; if- when the unoffending town 
of Sion capitulated to the French, the troops were let 
loose to revel, in every species of licentiousness and cruel- 
ty ; — if more recently, when Stantz was carried, after a 
short, but vigorous and honorable resistance, such as 
would have conciliated the esteem of any but a French 
conqueror, the whole town was burnt to the ground, and 
the ashes quenched with the blood of the inhabitants ; — 
the bare recital of these horrors and atrocities awakens in 
British bosoms, I trust it does awaken, I trust it will long 
keep alive, an abhorrence of the riation and name of that 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 63^' 

people by whom such execrable cruelties have been prac- 
tised, and such terrible calamities inflicted ; but on the 
Swiss, we are to understand, these cruelties and calami- 
ties have left no lasting impression ; the inhabitants of So- 
leure, who followed with tears of anguish and indignation, 
their venerated magistrates to a death of terror and igno- 
miny ; the husbands and fathers and sons of those wretch- 
ed victims who expired in torture and in shame, beneath 
the brutality of a savage soldiery at Sion ; the wretched 
survivors of those who perished in the ruins of the country 
at Stantz, they all felt but a transient pang ; their tears 
by this time are dried ; their rage is hushed ; their re- 
sentment silenced ; there is nothing in their feelings which 
can be stimulated into honorable and effectual action : 
there is no motive for their exertions, upon which we can 
safely and permanently rely ! Sir, I should be ashamed 
to waste your time by arguing such a question. 



TENCE OF DESCRIBING SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS. 

In this very chamber did the chancellor and judges sit, 
with all the gravity and affected attention to arguments in 
favour of that liberty and those rights which they had con- 
spired to destroy. But to what end, my lords, offer argu-- 
ment to such men .^ A little and a peevish mind may be 
exasperated, but how shall it be corrected by refutation .'' 
How fruitless would it have been to represent to that 
wretched chancellor, that he was betraying those rights 
which he was sworn to maintain ; that he was involving a 
government in disgrace, and a kingdom in panic and con- 
sternation ; that he was violating every sacred duty, and 
every solemn engagement that bound him to himself, his 
country, his sovereign, and his God ! — Alas, my lords, by 
what argument could any man hope to reclaim or disSuade 
a mean, illiberal, and unprincipled minion of authority, in- 
duced by his profligacy to undertake, and bound by his 
avarice and vanity to persevere ? He would probably have 
replied to the most unanswerable arguments, by some curt, 
contumelious, and unrtie ailing apophthegm, delivered witk 



64 THE NEW SPEAKER, 

the fretful smile of irritated self-sufficiency and disconcert- 
ed arrogance ; or, even if he should be dragged by his 
fears to a consideration of the question, by what miracle 
could the pigmy capacity of a stunted pedant be enlarged 
to a reception of the subject ? The endeavour to approach 
it would have only removed him to a greater distance than 
he was before ! as a little hand that strives to grasp a 
mighty globe is thrown back by the re-action of its own ef- 
fort to comprehend.- — It may be given to a Hale, or a Hard- 
wicke, to discover and retract a mistake , the errors of 
such men are only specks that arise for a moment upon 
the surface of a splendid luminary ; consumed by its h-eat, 
or irradiated by its light, they soon purge and disappear ; 
but the perverseness of a mean and narrow intellect, are 
like the excrescences that grow upon a body naturally 
cold and dark : no fire to waste them, and no ray to en- 
lighten, they assimilate and coalesce with those qualities 
so congenial to their nature, and acquire an incorrigible 
permanency in the union with kindred frost and kindred 
opacity. Nor, indeed, my lords, except where the inter- 
est of millions can be affected by the folly or the vice of 
an individual, need it be much regretted, that to things not 
worthy of being made better, it hath not pleased Provi- 
dence to afford the privilege of improvement. 



A 

MOTION TO PASS A LAW, TO LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF 
PENSIONS. 1786, 

Sm — I object to adjourning this bill to the first of Au- 
gust, because I perceive, in the present disposition of the 
house, that a proper decision will be made upon it this 
night. We have set out upon our inquiry in a manner so 
honorable, and so consistent, that we have reason to ex- 
pect the happiest success, which I would not wish to see 
baffled by delay. 

We began by giving the /ull affirmative of this house, 
that no grievance exists at all ; we considered a simple 
matter of fact, and adjourned our opinion, or rather we 
gave sentence on the conclusion, after having adjourned 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 65 

the premises. But I do begin to see a great deal of ar- 
gument in what the learned baronet has said, and I beg 
gentlemen will acquit me of apostacy if I offer some rea- 
sons why the bill should not be admitted to a second 
reading. 

I am surprised that gentlemen have taken up such a 
foolish opinion, as that our constitution is maintained by 
its different component parts, mutually checking and con- 
trolling each other : they seem to think with Hobbes, 
that a state of nature is a state of warfare ; and that, like 
Mahomet's coffin, the constitution is suspended between 
the attraction of different powers. My friends seem to 
think that the crown should be restrained from doing 
wrong by a physical necessity ; forgetting, that if you 
take away from a man all power to do wrong, you at the 
same time take away from him all merit of doing right, 
and by making it impossible for men to run into slavery, 
you enslave them most effectually. But if, instead of the 
three different parts of our constitution drawing forcibly 
in right lines, at opposite directions, they were to unite 
their power, and draw all one way, in one right line, how 
great would be the effect of their force, how happy the 
direction of this union ! The present system is not only 
contrary to mathematical rectitude, but to publick harmo- 
ny ; but if instead of privilege setting up his back to op- 
pose prerogative, he was to saddle his back, and invite 
prerogative to ride, how comfortably might they both jog 
along ; and therefore it delights me to hear the advocates 
for the royal bounty's flowing freely, and spontaneously, 
and abund-antly, as Holywell in Wales. If the crown 
grants double the amount of the revenue in pensions, they 
approve of their royal master, for he is the breath of their 
nostrils. 

But we shall find that this complaisance, this gentleness 
between the crown and its true servants, is not confined at 
home ; it extends its influence to foreign pov/ers. Our 
merchants have been insulted in Portugal, our commerce 
interdicted ; What did the British lion do ? Did he whet his 
tusks ? Did he bristle up and shake his mane .'* Did he 
roar ? no ; no such thing — the gentle creature wagged his 
tail for six years at the court of Lisbon, and now we hear 
from the Delphic Oracle on the treasury bench, that he 
6* 



ee THE NEW SPEAKlIR 

is wagging his tail in London to Chevalier Pinto ; who, he. 
hopes soon to be able to tell us, will allow his lady to enter- 
tain him as a lap-dog ; and when she does, no doubt the 
British factories will furnish some of their softest woollens 
to make a cushion for him to lie upon. But though the 
gentle beast has continued so long fawning and crouching, 
I believe his vengeance will be as great as it is slow, and 
that posterity, whose ancestors are yet unborn, will be sur- 
prised at the vengeance he will take. 

This polyglot of wealth, this museum of curiosities, the 
Pension List, embraces every link in the human chain, 
every description of men, women, aad children, from the 
exalted excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney, to the de- 
based situation of the lady who humbleth herself that she 
may be exalted. But the lesson it inculcates forms its 
greatest perfection ; it teacheth, that sloth and vice may 
eat that bread which virtue and honesty may starve for 
after they have earned it. It teaches the idle and dissolute 
to look up for that support which they are too proud to 
stoop and earn. It directs the minds of men to an entire 
reliance on the ruling power of the state, who feeds the 
ravens of the royal aviary that cry continually for food. It 
teaches them to imitate those saints on the pension list,, 
that are like the lilies of the field ; they toil not, neither da 
they spin, yet are arrayed like Solomon in his glory. In 
fine, it teaches a lesson, which indeed they might have 
learned from Epictetus — that it is sometimes good not to 
be over virtuous : it shows, that in proportion as our dis- 
tresses increase, the munificence of the crown increases 
also ; in proportion as our clothes are rent, the royal man- 
tle is extended over us. 

• But, notwithstanding the pension list, like charity, cov-' 
ers a multitude of sins, give me leave to consider it a» 
coming home to the members of this house ; give me 
leave to say, that the crown, in extending its charity, its 
liberality, its profusion, is laying a foundation for the inde-^ 
pendence of parliament ; for hereafter, instead of orators 
or patriots accounting for their conduct to such mean and 
unworthy persons as freeholders, they will learn to despise 
them, and look to the first man in the state ; and they will 
by so doing have this security for their independence, that 
while any man in the kingdom has a shilling they will not 
want one. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 67 

Suppose, at any future period of time^ the boroughs of 
Ireland should decline from their present flourishing and 
prosperous state ; suppose they should fall into the hands 
of men who would wish to drive a profitable commerce, by 
having members of parliament to hire or let ; in such a 
case, a secretary would find great difficulty, if the proprie- 
tors of members should enter into a combination to form a 
monopoly ; to prevent which in time, the wisest way is to 
purchase up the raw material, young members of parlia- 
ment, just rough from the grass, and when they are a little 
bitted, and he has got a pretty stud, perhaps of seventy, 
he may laugh at the slave-merchant ; some of them he 
may teach to sound through the nose, like a barrel organ ; 
some, in the course of a few months, might be taught to 
cry, hear ! hear /—some, chair ! chair ! upon occasion ; 
though these latter might create a little confusion, if they 
were to forget whether they were calling inside or outside 
those doors. Again, he might have some so trained that 
he need only pull a string, and up gets a repeating mem- 
ber ; and if they were so dull that they could neither 
speak nor make orations, (for they are different things,) 
he might have them taught to dance pedibus ire in sentential 
This improvement might be extended j he might have 
them dressed in coats and shirts of one color, and ort 
Sunday he might march them to church, two and two^ to 
the great edification of the people and the honor of the 
Christian religion : afterwards, like the ancient Spartans^ 
or the fraternity at Kilmainham, they might dine altogeth- 
er in a large ball* Good heaven I what a sight to se© 
them feeding in public Upon public viands, and talking 
of public subjects for the benefit of tho public ! it is t6 
pity they are not immortal ; but I hope they will flourish 
as a corporation^ and that pensioners will beget pensioners 
to the end of the chapter^ 



i?HE LIBEETY OP T^E PRESS. — CURRAN. 

Where the press is free and discussion unrestrained^ 
the mind, by the collision of intercourse^ gets rid of its 
own asperities, a sort of insensible perspiration takes place 



QS THE NEW SPEAKER. 

in the body politic, by which those acrimonies, which 
would otherwise fester and inflame, are quietly dissolved 
and dissipated. But now, if any aggregate assembly shall 
meet, they are censured ; if a printer publishes their reso- 
lution, he is punished. Rightly to be sure in both cases, 
for it has been lately done. If the people say, let us not 
create tumult, but meet in delegation, they car-iot do it ; 
if they are anxious to promote parliamentary reform in 
that way, they cannot do it ; the law of the last session 
has for the first time declared such meetings to be a crime.^ 
What then remains ? The liberty of the press only ; that 
sacred palladium, which no influence, no power, no minis- 
ter, no government, which nothing but the depravity, or 
folly, or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy. And 
what calamities are the people saved from by having pub- 
lic communication left open to them } I will tell you, 
gentlemen, what they are saved from, and what the gov- 
ernment is saved from ; I will tell you also to what both 
are exposed by shutting up that communication. In one 
case sedition speaks aloud, and walks abroad ; the dema- 
go£;ue goes forth ; the public eye is upon him ; he frets 
his busy hour upon the stage ; but soon, either weariness, 
or bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bears him 
down, or drives him off", and he appears no more. In the 
other case, how does the work of sedition go forward ? 
jVight after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, 
and casts another and another brand upon the pile, to 
which when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will 
apply the flame. If you doubt of the horrid consequences 
of suppressing the effusion of individual discontent, look to 
those enslaved countries where the protection of despotism 
is supposed to be secured by such restraints. Even the 
person of the despot there is never in safety. Neither 
the fears of the despot, nor the machinations of the slave, 
have any slumber, the one anticipating the moment of 
peril, the other watching the opportunity of aggression. 
The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon both ; the deci- 
sive instant is precipitated without warning, by folly on the 
one side, or by phrenzy on the other, and there is no no- 
tice of the treason till the traitor acts. 

But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and more inter- 
esting example, you have it in the history of your own 



THE NEW SPEAKER. G9 

revolution ; you have it in that memorable period, when 
the monarch found a servile acquiescence in the ministers 
of his folly ; when the liberty of the press was trodden 
under foot : when venal sheriffs returned packed juries to 
carry into effect those fatal conspiracies of the few against 
the many ; when the devoted benches of publick justice 
were filled by some of those foundlings of fortune, who, 
overwhelmed in the torrent of corruption at an early pe- 
riod, lay at the bottom like drowned bodies, while sound- 
ness or sanity remained in them ; but at length becoming 
buoyant by putrefaction, they rose as they rotted, and 
floated to the surface of the polluted stream, where they 
were drifted along, the objects of terror, and contagion, 
and abomination. 

In that awful moment of a nation's travail ; of the last 
gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how preg- 
nant is the example ! The press extinguished, the people 
enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of 
society, therefore, of peace, of domestick liberty, and the 
lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard 
the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of state, that 
grand detector of public imposture : guard it, becausCj.. 
when it sinks, there sinks with it, in one common grave, 
the liberty of the subject, and the security of the crown. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. CURRANTS SPEECH ON THE TRIAL OF 
ROWAN. 

Gentlemen — If still you have any doubt as to the guilt 
or innocence of the defendant, give me leave to suggest to 
you what circumstances you ought to consider, in order to 
found your verdict. You should consider the character of 
the person accused, and in this your task is easy. J will 
venture to say, there is not a man in this nation m«re known 
than the gentleman who is the subject of this prosecution, 
not only by the part he has taken in public concerns, and 
which he has taken in common with many, but still more 
so, by that extraordinary sympathy for human affliction, 
which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a num~ 
ber. There is not a day that you hear the cries of your 



# THE NEW Si»EAKER. 

starving manufacturers in your streets, that yoti do not 
also see the advocate of their sufferings ; that you do not 
S6e his honest arid manly figure, with uncovered head, so- 
liciting for their reUef, searching the frozen heart of chari- 
ty for every string that can be touched by compassion, and 
urging the force of every argument and every motive, 
save that which his modesty suppresses : the authority of 
his own generous example. Or if you see him not there^ 
you may trace his steps to the private abode of disease, 
and famine, and despair ; the messenger of Heaven, bear- 
ing with him food, and medicine, and consolation. Are 
these the materials, of which anarchy and public rapine 
are to be formed ^ Is this the man, on whom to fasten the 
abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to 
mutiny and bloodshed ? Is this the man likely to aposta- 
tize from every principle that can bind him to the state, 
his birth, his property, his education, his character, and 
his childreri } Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, if 
you agree with his prosecutors, in thinking that there 
ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such an occa- 
sion, and upon the credit of such evidence, you are to 
convict him. Never did you, never can you give a sen- 
tence, consigning any man to public punishment with less 
danger to his person or to his fame : for where could the 
hireling be found to fling con'tumely or ingratitude at his 
head, whose private distress he had not labored to alleviate, 
or whose public condition he had not labored to improve. 

When your sentence shall have sent him forth to that 
stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, let me tell 
you, he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty ped- 
estal, diminishing by elevation. But he will stand a strik- 
ing and imposing object upon a monument, which, if it 
does not, and it cannot, record the atrocity of his crime, 
must record the atrocity of his conviction. 

But'I will not, for the justice and honor of oiir common 
country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melaft- 
choly anticipations. I will not relinquish the confidence, 
that this day will be the period of his sufferings ; and, how"- 
ever mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your 
verdict will send him home to the arms of his family and 
the wishes of his country. But if, which Heaven forbid, 
it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because 



he has not bent to power and authority, because, he would 
not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is 
to be bound and cast into the furnace ; 1 do trust in God, 
that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which 
will be seen to. walk with the sufferer through the flames, 
and to preserve him unhurt bj the conflagration. 



PUBLISHING OBSERVATIONS ON THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM 
ORR.— CURRAN. 

JBuT, gentlemen, in order to bring this charge of insolence 
and vulgarity to the test, let me ask you, whether you know 
of any language which could have adequately describ- 
ed the idea of mercy denied, where it ought to have been 
granted, or of any phrase vigorous enough to convey the 
indignation which an honest man would have felt upon 
such a subject ? Let me beg of you for a moment to sup- 
pose that any one of you had been the writer of this very 
severe expostulation with the viceroy, and that you had 
been the witness of this never to be forgotten catastrophe. 
Let me suppose that you had known the charge upon 
which jMr. Orr was apprehended, the charge of abjuring 
that bigotry which had torn and disgraced his country, of 
pledging himself to restore the people of his country to 
their place in the constitution, and of binding himself never 
to be the betrayer of his fellow labourers in that enterprise ; 
that you had seen him upon that charge removed from his 
industry, and confined to a gaol ; that through the slow 
and lingering progress of twelve tedious months you had 
seen him confined to a dungeon, shut out from the common 
use of air and his own limbs ; that, day after day, you had 
marked the unhappy captive cheered by no sound but the 
cries of his family, or the cUnking of chains ; that you had 
seen him at last brought to his trial ; that you had seen 
the vile and perjured informer deposing against his life ; 
that you had seen the drunken, and worn out and terrified 
jury give in a verdict of death ; that you had seen the 
same jury, when their returning sobriety had brought back 
their conscience, prostrate themselves before the humanity 



11% THE NEW SPEAKER. 

of the bench, and pray that the mercy of the crown might 
save their characters from the reproach of an involuntary 
crime, their consciences from the torture of eternal self-con- 
demnation, and their souls from thei ndelible stain of innocent 
blood. Let me suppose that you had seen the respite given, 
and that contrite and honest recommendation transmitted 
to that seat where mercy was presumed to dwell ; that new 
and before unheard of crimes are discovered against the 
informer ; that the royal mercy seems to relent, and that a 
new respite is sent to the prisoner ; that time is taken, as 
the learned counsel for the crown has expressed it, to see 
whether mercy could be extended or not ! that, after that 
period of lingering deliberation passed, a third respite is 
transmitted ; that the unhappy captive himself feels the 
cheering hope of being restored to a family that he had 
adored, to a character that he had never stained, and to a 
country that he had ever loved ; that you had seen his 
wife and children upon their knees, giving those tears to 
gratitude, which their locked and frozen hearts could not 
give to anguish and despair, and imploring the blessings of 
eternal providence upon his head, who had, graciously 
spared the father, and restored him to his children ; that 
you had seen the olive branch sent into his little ark, but 
no sign that the waters had subsided. ' Alas ! nor wife, 
nor children more shall he behold, nor friends, nor sacred 
home ! ' No seraph mercy unbars his dungeon, and leads 
him forth to light and life ; but the luinister of death hur- 
ries him to the scene of suffering and of shame ; where, 
unmoved by the hostile array of artillery and armed men 
collected together, to secure, or to insult, or to disturb 
him, he dies with a solemn declaration of his innocence, 
and utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty of his 
country. Let me now ask you, if any of you had address- 
ed the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a subject, 
in what language would you have conveyed the feelings of 
horror and indignation — would you have stooped to the 
meanness of qualified complaint ? — would you have been 
mean enough — but I entreat your forgiveness — I do not 
think meanly of you ; had I thought so meanly of you, I 
could not suffer my mind to commune with you as it has 
done ; had I thought you that base and vile instrument, 
attuned by hope and by fear into discord and falsehood, 



I 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 73 

from whose vulgar string no groan of suffering could 
vibrate, no voice of integrity or honor could speak, let 
rae honestly tell you, I should have scorned to fling my 
hand across it ; I should have left it to a fitter minstrel : 
if I do not therefore grossly err in my opinion of you, I 
could use no language upon such a subject as this, that 
must not lag behind the rapidity of your feelings, and that 
would not disgrace those feelings, if it attempted to de- 
scribe them. 

Gentlemen, I am not unconscious that the learned coun- 
sel for the crown seemed to address you with a confidence 
of a very different kind ; he seemed to expect from you a 
kind and respectful sympathy with the feelings of the castle, 
and with the griefs of chided authority. Perhaps, gentle- 
men, he may know you better than I do ; if he does, he 
has spoken to you as he ought ; he has been right in tell- 
ing you that if the reprobation of this writer is weak, it is 
because his genius could not make it stronger ; he has 
been right in telling you that his language has not been 
braided and festooned as elegantly as it might, that he has 
not pinched the miserable plaits of his phraseology, nor 
placed his patches and feathers with that correctness of 
millinery which become so exalted a person. If you agree 
with him, gentlemen of the jury, if you think that the man, 
who ventures at the hazard of his own life to rescue from 
the deep the drowning honor of his country, must not pre- 
sume upon the guilty familiarity of plucking it up by the 
locks, I have no more to say ; do a courteous thing. Up- 
right and honest jurors, find a civil and obhging verdict 
against the printer ! And when you have done so, march 
through the ranks of your fellow citizens to your own homes, 
and bear their looks as they pass along ; retire to the besom 
of your families and your children, and when you are pre- 
siding over the morality of the parental board, tell those in- 
fants who are to be the future men of Ireland, the history of 
this day. Form their young minds by your precepts and 
confirm those precepts by your own example ; teach them 
how discreetly allegiance may be perjured on the table, or 
loyalty be foresworn in the jury-box ; and when you have 
done so, tell them the story of Orr ; tell them of his captiv- 
ity, of his children, of his crime, of his hopes, of his disap- 
pointments, of his courage, and of his death ; and when you 
7 



74 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

find your little hearers hanging from your lips, when yod 
see their eyes overflow with sympathy and sorrow, and 
their young hearts bursting with the pangs of anticipated 
orphanage, tell them that you had the boldness and the 
justice to stigmatize the monster — who had dared to publish 
the transaction. 



PICTUHE OF AN INFORMER.—- CURRAN. 

But the learned gentleman is further pleased to say^ 
that the traverser has charged the government v/ith the 
encouragement of informers. This, gentlemen, is another 
small fact that you are to deny at the hazard of your souls, 
and upon the solemnity of your oaths. You are, upon your 
oaths, to say to the sister country, that the government of 
Ireland uses no such abominable instruments of destruction 
as informers. Let me ask you honestly, what do you feel, 
when in my hearing, when in the face of this audience, 
you are called upon to give a verdict that every man of uS;, 
and every nian of you knows by the testimony of his own 
eyes to be utterly and absolutely false ? I speak not now 
of the public proclamation of informers with a promise of 
secrecy and of extravagant reward ; I speak not of the fate 
of those horrid wretches who have been so often transfer- 
red from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the 
pillory ; I speak of what your own eyes have seen day af- 
ter day during the course of this commission from the box 
where you are now sitting ; the number of horrid miscre- 
ants who avowt^d upon their oaths that they had come from 
the very seat of government — from the castle, where they 
had been worked upon by the fear of death and the hopes 
of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows, 
that the mild and wholesome councils of this government, 
are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the 
wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to 
fester and dissolve, and is then dug up a witness. 

Is this fancy, or is it fact .'' Have you not seen him, af- 
ter his resurrection from that tomb, after having been dug 
out of the region of death and corruption, make his ap- 
pearance upon the table, the living image of life and of 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 75 

death, and the supreme arbiter of both ? Have you not mark- 
ed when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude 
retired at his approach ? Have you not marked how the 
human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in 
the undissembled homage of deferential horror ? How 
his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the 
body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his 
voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and death ; a 
death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no 
force resist, no antidote prevent : — there ivas an antidote 
— a juror's oath — but even this adamantine chain, that 
bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, 
is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the in- 
former's mouth ; conscience swings from her moorings, 
and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safe- 
ty in the surrender of the victim : — 

Et quae sibi quisque timebat- 



Unius in miseri exitium conversa tulere. 



EXTRACT FROM AN APPEAL TO THE IRISH PARLIAMENT TO 
EMANCIPATE THE PEOPLE FROM A DEPENDANCE ON ENG* 
LAND. GRATTAN. 

I HAVE intreated an attendance of the house on this day, 
to protest against the usurpations of the parliament of Great 
Britain, and to join with me in lifting up their hands and 
voices against such usurpations. Two millions of people 
out of doors were to be satisfied, and had I a son, I would, 
like the father of Hannibal, bring him to the altar to swear 
the sacred maintenance of the people's rights. I would 
move them^to as full and ample a declaration as could be 
done without shaking the pillars of the state. It is impos- 
sible to stop the voice of millions — the public mind was 
not at ease — enough was not done. — You are the guardians 
of the public liberty, you owe your country that liberty, 
and she calls upon you to restore it — she calls upon you to 
make Great Britain revoke the injustice of her laws, and 
to restore your political, as she has your commercial free- 
dom. In passing the bills for liberating your trade, the 



76 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

British minister has made use of the words, that it icas ex- 
pedient to allow Ireland to export her oivn products. Expedi- 
ent is a word of great reserve. Expedient is a word fatal 
to Great Britain. By such a word she lost America, and 
plunged her country in scenes of blood. By this reserva- 
tion your trade is in the power of England, whenever she 
may think proper to take it away. 

We were allowed a moment of satisfaction, but not a re- 
lief from slavery. God has afforded you an opportunity to 
emancipate yourselves and your posterity ; wait not the 
issue of a general peace, when the direction of her power 
on this fated island may again lay you in bondage. For 
the honor of your country — for the honor of human nature 
— by the memory of your sufferings — by the sense you feel 
for your wrongs — by the love you owe your posterity — by 
the dignity and generous feelings of Irishmen — I beseech 
you to seize the auspicious occasion, and let this be the 
hour of your freedom ! The doctrine of parliamentary su- 
premacy Great Britain now finds to be nonsense — parlia- 
mentary supremacy has been the bane of Great Britain. — 
Her enemies are on all sides pouring on her. The sea is 
not hers ; the honor of her councils and arms is tarnished. 
She has no army — no fleet — no admirals — no general. — A 
supineness pervades her measures — and distractions attend 
her councils. Parliament is the only spring to convey the 
native voice of the peoplie ; never this or any other coun- 
try beheld a senate possessed of so much public confidence. 
There is an ardent combination among the people, a fire 
which animates the nation to its own redemption. — A sacred 
enthusiasm, unconveyed in the language of antiquity, and 
which only belongs to the natural confidence of freedom. — 
Forty thousand men in arms look up to the result of this 
day's deliberation. — Let the lovers of freedom rejoice at 
that martial spirit, which has operated to national happi- 
ness. If you refuse to comply with the resolution of this 
day, you belie the desire of your constituents. A providen- 
tial conjunction and the hand of God seem to demand and 
direct it ; grasp at a blessing, which promises indepen- 
dence and happiness. Yesterday the servants of the 
crown were asked, whether a standing army of fifteen 
thousand Irishmen were to be bound in this kingdom by 
English laws ; and the servants of the crown have asserted 



THE NEW SPEAKEK. 77 

that they shall. The servants of the crown have dared to 
avow that they shall be bound by English laws. — This is the 
consequence of your rejoicing at a partial repeal of the 
laws which oppress you? — your exultation betrayed your 
rights. The courtier may have his salary — the landed 
gentleman may have his rent — you may export the com- 
modities of your country, and bring the returns of another 
— but liberty — liberty, the consummation of all trade, is 
wanting. The superstructure is left without a base — you 
have commerce without a full trade, and a senate without 
a parliament. When I found a prohibition upon glass and 
other commodities, when I found an act of the 6th of 
George the First, which expressly claimed a power of 
bonding this kingdom — the king, without its parliament, 
enacting a law to bind the people of Ireland, by making 
laws for them ; it was time to call the authority of England 
a rod of tyranny. I call upon the judges of the land, the 
justices of the peace, and officers of the army to say 
whether they do not act under the direction of the English 
statutes ? A present and explicit declaration of rights must 
remove all this. Three millions of people must feel how 
necessary it is to be free as the people of England. They 
must behold with veneration, a parliament superior to ev- 
ery other and equal to that which passed the bill of rights. 
— A senate composed of men that would do honor to 
Rome, when Rome did honor to human nature. 



INVECTIVE AGAINST MR. CORRY, IN REPLY TO HIS ASPER- 
SIONS. GRATTAN. 

My guilt or innocence have little to do with the question 
here. — I rose with the rising fortunes of my country — I am 
willing to die with her expiring liberties. To the voice of 
the people I will bow, but never shall I subnrit to the cal- 
umnies of an individual hired to betray them and slander 
me. The indisposition of my body has left me perhaps no 
means but that of lying down with fallen Ireland, and re- 
cording upon her tomb my dying testimony against the fla^ 
gitious corruption that has murdered her independence. 
The right honorable gentleman has said that this was not 
7* 



78 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

my place— that instead of having a voice in the councils of 
my country, I should now stand a culprit at her bar — at 
the bar of a court of criminal judicature to answer for my 
treasons. The Irish people have not so read my history — 
but let that pass — if I am what he has said I am, the peo- 
ple are not therefore to forfeit their constitution. In point 
of argument, therefore, the attack is bad — in point of taste 
or feeling, if he had either, it is worse — in point of fact, it is 
false, utterly and absolutely false — as rancorous a falsehood 
as the most malignant motives could suggest to the prompt 
sympathy of a shameless and a venal defence. The right 
honorable gentleman has suggested examples which I 
should have shunned, and examples which I should have 
followed. I shall never follow his, and I have ever avoid- 
ed it. I shall never be ambitious to purchase public scorn 
by private infamy — the lighter characters of the model 
have as little chance of weaning me from the habits of a life 
spent, if n>ot exhausted, in the cause of my native land. 
Am I to renounce those habits now forever, and at the beck 
of whom ? I should rather say of what ? — half a minister — 
half a monkey — a 'prentice politician, and a master cox- 
comb. He has told you that what he said of me here, he 
would say any where. I believe he would say thus of me 
in any place where he thought himself safe in saying it.— 
Nothing can limit his calumnies but his fears — in parlia- 
ment he has calumniated me to-night, in the king's courts 
he would calumniate me to-morrow, but had he said or dar- 
ed to insinuate one half as much elsewhere, the indignant 
spirit of an honest man would have answered the yile^-and 
venal slanderer with — a blow. 



CHARACTER OP MR. GRATTAN BURROWES. 

I PEEL but little any portion of the noble lord's obloquy, 
which may attach to me or my humble efforts ! but I own, 
I cannot repress my indignation at the audacious boldness 
of the calumny, which would asperse one of the most ex- 
alted characters which any nation ever produced, and that 
in a country which owes its liberties and its greatness to 
the energy of his exertions, and in the very house which 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 7^ 

has so often been the theatre of his glorious labors and 
splendid achievements. I remember that man the theme 
of universal panegyric — the wonder and the boast of Ire- 
land for his genius and his virtue. His name silenced the 
sceptic upon the reality of genuine patriotism. To doubt 
the purity of his motives was a heresy which no tongue 
dared to utter — envy was lost in admiration, and even they 
whose crimes he scourged, blended extorted praises with 
the murmurs of resentment. He covered our then unfledg- 
ed constitution with the ample wings of his talents — as the 
eagle covers her young ; like her he soared, and like her 
he could behold the rays, whether of royal favor or of 
royal anger, with undazzled, unintimidated eye. If, ac- 
cording to Demosthenes, to grow with the growth, and to 
decay with the decline of our country, be the true criteri- 
on of a good citizen, how infinitely did this man, even in 
the moment of his lowest depression, surpass those upstart 
patriots, who only become visible when their country van- 
ishes. 

Sir, there is something most singularly curious, and ac- 
cording to my estimation of things, enviable, in the fate of 
this great man ; his character and his consequence are, as 
it were, vitally interwoven with the greatness of his coun- 
try — the one cannot be high, and the other low — the one 
cannot stand, and the other perish ; this was so well un- 
derstood by those who have so long meditated to put down 
the constitution of Ireland, that, feeling that they could 
not seduce, they have incessantly labored to calumniate 
her most vigilant sentinel and ablest champion — they ap- 
pealed to every unguarded prejudice, to every assailable 
weakness of a generous but credulous people — they watch* 
ed every favorable moment of irritation or of terror to 
pour in the detested poison of calumny. Sir, it will be 
found on a retrospect of Ireland since 1782, that her lib- 
erties never received a wound that a correspondent stab 
was not levelled at his character, and when it was vainly 
hoped, that his imperishable fame was laid in the dust, the 
times were deemed ripe for the extinction of our constitu- 
tion. Sir, these impious labors cannot finally succeed, 
glory and liberty are not easily effaced, Grattan and the 
constitution will survive the storm. 



80 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION ON THE VIRTUES OP GENERAL 
WASHINGTON, PRONOUNCED THE 8tH OF FEBRUARY, 1800. 
AMES. 

It is natural that the gratitude of mankind should be 
drawn to their benefactors. A number of these have suc- 
cessively arisen, who were no less distinguished for the 
elevation of their virtues, than the lustre of their talents. 
Of those, however, who were born, and who acted through 
life, as if they were born not for themselves, but for their 
country and the whole human race, how few are recorded 
in the long annals of ages, and how wide the intervals of 
time and space that divide them. In all this dreary length 
of way, they appear like five or six light-houses on as 
many thousand mil'es of coast ; they gleam upon the sur- 
rounding darkness, with an inextinguishable splendor, 
like stars seen through a mist ; but they are seen like 
stars, to cheer, to guide, and to save. Washington is now 
added to that small number. Already he attracts curiosi- 
ty, like a newly discovered star, whose benignant light 
will travel on to the world's and tim<^'s farthest bounds. 
Already his name is hung up by history as conspicuously, 
as if it sparkled in one of the constellations of the sky. 
By commemorating his death, we are called this day to 
yield the homage that is due to his virtue ; to confess the 
common debt of mankind as well as our own ; and to pro- 
nounce for posterity, now dumb, that eulogium, which they 
will delight to echo ten ages hence when we are dumb. 
The unambitious life of Washington, declining fame, yet 
courted by it, seemed, like his own Potomac, widening 
and deepening his channel, as he approaches the sea, and 
displaying most the usefulness and serenity of his great- 
ness towards the end of his course. Such a citizen would 
do honor to any country. The constant veneration and 
affection of his country will show that it was worthy of 
such a citizen. However his military fame may excite 
the wonder of mankind, it is chiefly by his civil magistracy 
that his example will instruct them. Great generals have 
arisen in all ages of the world, and perhaps most in those 
of despotism and darkness. In times of violence and con- 
vulsion, they rise, by the force of the whirlwind, high 
enough to ride in it, and direct the storm. Like meteors, 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 81 

they glare on the black clouds with a splendor, that, while it 
dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but the dark- 
ness. The fame of heroes is indeed growing vulgar ! 
They multiply in every long war ! They stand in history, 
and thicken in their ranks, almost as undistinguished as 
their own soldiers. 

But such a chief magistrate as Washington appears 
like the pole star in a clear sky, to direct the skilful 
statesman. His presidency will form an epoch, and be 
distinguished as the age of Washington. Already it assumes 
its high place in the political region. Like the milky way, 
it whitens along its allotted portion of the hemisphere. The 
latest generations of men will survey, through the tele- 
scope of history, the space where so many virtues blend 
their rays, and delight to separate them into groups and 
distinct virtues. As the best illustration of them, the liv- 
ing monument, to which the first of patriots would have 
chosen to consign his fame, it is my earnest prayer to 
Heaven, that our country may subsist, even to that late 
day, in the plenitude of its liberty and happiness, and 
mingle its mild glory with Washington's. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. ERSKINe's SPEECH IN THE TRIAL OF 
WILLIAMS, FOR PUBLISHING PAINe's ^ AGE OF REASON.' 

In running the mind along the long list of sincere and 
devout Christians, I cannot help lamenting, that Newton 
had not lived to this day, to have had his shallowness filled 
up with this new flood of light. — But the subject is too aw- 
ful for irony. I will speak plainly and directly. Newton 
was a Christian ! — Newton, whose mind burst forth from 
the fetters cast by nature upon our finite conceptions — 
Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundations of 
whose knowledge of it was philosophy ; not those visionary 
and arrogant presumptions, which too often usurp its 
name, but philosophy resting upon the basis of mathemat- 
ics, which, like figures, cannot lie — Newton, who carried 
the line and rule to the uttermost barrier of creation, and 
explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created 
matter is held together and exists. But this extraordinary 



82 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, perhaps, 
what a minuter investigation of the created things on this 
earth might have taught him, of the essence of his Creator. 
What then shall be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who look- 
ed into the organic structure of all matter, even to the 
brute, inanimate substances, which the foot treads on ? 
Such a man may be supposed to have been equally quali- 
fied with Mr. Paine to look up through nature to nature's 
God : yet the result of all his contemplation was the most 
confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in 
contempt, as despicable and drivelling superstition. — But 
this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due atten- 
tion to the foundations of human judgment, and the struc- 
ture of that understanding which God has given us for the 
investigation of truth. Let that question be answered by 
Mr. Locke, who was, to the highest pitch of devotion and 
adoration, a Christian — Mr. Locke, whose office was to 
detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the fountains 
of thought, and to direct into the proper track of reason- 
ing, the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole 
process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last con- 
clusions of ratiocination, putting a rein upon false opin- 
ions, by practical rules for the conduct of human judge- 
ment. But these men were only deep thinkers, and lived 
in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, 
and to the laws which practically regulate mankind. 

Gentlemen ! in the place where we now sit to administer 
the justice of this great country, above a century ago, the 
never to be forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided ; whose 
faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its 
truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of 
its fruits in man, administering human justice with wisdom 
and purity drawn from the pure fountain of the christian 
dispensation, which has been, and will be in all ages, a 
subject of the highest reverence and admiration. But it 
is said by the author, that the christian fable is but the 
tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world, and 
may be easily detected by a proper understanding of the 
mythologies of the heathens. Did Milton understand 
those mythologies ? Was he less versed than JMr. Paine 
in the superstitions of the world ^ No, they were the subject 
of his immortal song ; and though shut out from all recur- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 83 

fence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a 
memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in 
their order as the illustration of real and exalted faith, the 
unquestionable source of that fervid genius, which cast a 
sort of shade upon all the other works of man. But it 
was the light of the body only that was extinguished ; 
^ The celestial hght shone inward, and enabled him to jus- 
tify the ways of God to man.' 

Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or splendid, or 
illustrious amongst created beings ; all the minds gifted be-> 
yond ordinary nature, if not inspired by its universal 
Author for the advancement and dignity of the world, 
though divided by distant ages, and by clashing opinions, 
distinguishing them from one another, yet joining, as it 
were, in one sublime chorus to celebrate the truths of 
Christianity, and laying upon its holy altars the never fail- 
ing offerings of their immortal wisdom. 



How is the name of honor prostituted ! Can honor be 
the savage resolution, the brutal fierceness of a revengeful 
spirit } True honor is manifested in a steady, uniform 
train of actions, attended by justice, and directed by pru- 
dence. Is this the conduct of the duellist .'' will justice 
support him in robbing the community of an able and use- 
ful member, and in depriving the poor of a benefactor ? 
will it support him in preparing affliction for the widow's 
heart ? in filling the orphan's eyes with tears ? Will jus- 
tice acquit him for enlarging the punishment beyond the 
offence ? will it permit him, for, perhaps, a rash word that 
may admit of an apology, an unadvised action that may be 
retrieved, or an injury that may be compensated, to cut off 
a man before his days be half numbered, and for a tempo- 
rary fault inflict an endless punishment } On the other 
hand, v.dll prudence bear him out in risking an infamous 
death if he succeeds in the duel .'' but if he falls, will it 
plead his pardon at a more awful tribunal, for rushing into 
the presence of an offended God ? 

Senseless as this notion of honor is, it unhappily has its 



84 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

advocates among us : but for the prevalence of such a no- 
tion, how could the amiable person, whose death has made 
the solemn business of this day, be lost to his country, his 
family, and his friends ? Would to God that I was a master 
of words, and it could be indulged to the tenderness of a 
friend to pay a tribute to his memory ! I might then en- 
deavour to set him full before you in the variety of his ex- 
cellence ; but as this Would be venturing too far, I can only 
lament that such virtue had not a longer date : that this 
good man was cut off in the strength of his age, ere half 
his glass was run : when his heart was projecting and exe- 
cuting schemes to relieve distress, and by the most sur- 
prising acts of beneficence, vindicating- the bounty of 
Providence for heaping wealth upon him. 

Duelling seems to be an unnatural graft upon genuine 
courage, and the growth of a barbarous age. The polite 
nations of Greece and Rome knew nothing of it : they 
reserved their bravery for the enemies of their country, 
and then were prodigal of their blood. These brave peo- 
ple set honor up as a guardian genius of the public, to 
humanize their passions, to preserve their truth unblemish- 
ed, and to teach.them to value life only as useful to their 
country. The modern heroes dress it up like one of the 
■demons of superstition, besmeared with blood, and delight- 
ing in human sacrifice. 



., XX, THE CON- 
GRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, ON MR. CLARKe's MOTION 
FOR PROHIBITING BRITISH COMMERCE. 

But, Sir, we are told that negotiation is pusillanimous. 
Passion is called American feeling. We hear much about 
energy, and some seem to think that the occasion calls for 
insult. Sir, noise and declamation are very distinct from for- 
titude and patriotism. The bravest men do not bluster and 
threaten. Why should it be thought too tame a measure 
to state the injury, and with manly firmness demand a re- 
compense ? The pride, the petulance of kings, has always 
submitted to this, but the moderation of a republic forbids 
it. More proud than kings— more insolent than tyrants — - 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 85 

we despise this law of humanity, this compact of mankind. 
Where is the despot, the ermined monster, who dares to 
spread desolation and havoc, without demanding first his 
right ? And where. Sir, is the difference between not de- 
manding at all, and demanding in such a way as to ensure 
a refusal ? How much justice there is in the charge of pu- 
sillanimity, which has been so often and liberally made, I 
will not undertake to determine. — Perhaps he who pur- 
sues with decent firmness the steps, which propriety, hu- 
manity, and general consent have provided, and while he 
feels his strongest indignation, is too proud to throw dirt 
or threaten, but places himself in the best posture of de- 
fence, lest war should follow unsuccessful negotiation, is 
as truly magnanimous, as he who talks loudly of revenge, 
avows passion as his principle, calls hard names to pro- 
duce conciliation, and gives blows to keep peace, but 
at the same time does every thing to provoke war, and op- 
poses every measure to prepare for it. 

Why, Sir, should we be thus ingenious to avoid peace 
and rush hastily into the tragedy of Europe ? At such a 
moment we ought to pause and inquire what we can gain 
by war. We now possess every blessing for which other 
nations contend ; we may lose, but cannot gain by confu- 
sion. The price of our present political happiness was not 
small ; we are now eating the fruit of that tree, which was 
watered with the blood of our fathers, yet we suffer the 
canker-worm of jealousy to feed on its foliage ; the whirl- 
wind of discord threatens to root it up forever. What at- 
tractions do we'find in the desolation, the misery, the crimes 
of Europe ? . Their very virtues are shaded with horror ; 
their rulers are the scourges of mankind ; their business is 
oppression ; their sport is violation ; they trade in blood ; 
the priests of Moloch offer daily hecatombs of innocent 
victims ; they fatten on human sacrifices ; our former 
friends are insane ; or rather their patriotism borders on 
phrenzy ; Europe is at war with all the feelings of nature ; 
they blaspheme her rights ; they laugh at her agonies. 
Can it be necessary. Sir, to describe the happiness of our 
own country, to show the contrast ? We are so familiar 
with public blessings, that we have almost forgotten their 
value. The voice of oppression is not heard. Our habita- 
tions are the dwellings of virtue and domestic happiness 
8 



m THE NEW SPEAKER, 

The laws of morality and of our country are revered. We 
profane not the altars of religion. We have realized the 
golden age of fable. We have practised republican vis- 
ions. In this moment of danger our minds should swell 
to the magnitude of the occasion. We ought to brave ev- 
ery danger to defend these inestimable advantages ; but if 
we want prudence, we shall appear to want every virtue. 
I have now done with the question. The measure appears 
to me to threaten great mischief to our country. If this 
shall be realized, though I shall share in the common ca- 
lamity, a review of my conduct will not upbraid me. We 
may look back, Sir, across a deluge of misery, which may 
overwhelm the country, to the happy shore of peace, 
which perhaps we now imprudently abandon. We may 
recall this moment as that in which we hoisted the flood- 
gate of destruction. On such a retrospect our countrymen 
may say, you are the authors of these calamities, and you 
are responsible. 



RIDICULE OF THE PROPHESIED IMPROVEMENT TO BE DERIV- 
ED BY THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FROM ITS AMALGAMATION 
WITH THAT OF ENGLAND. — -BUSHE, * 

The pure and incorruptible virtue of thfe ministers can- 
not bear the prospect of such corruption, and that they 
may not see it, they plunge into the midst of it : they are 
Platonists in politics ; the gross sensualities of the con- 
nexion disgust them, but the pure and spiritual indulgence 
of the union delights them. Their romantic virtCie emu- 
lates the Roman fame, and the Irish Curtius dashes at the 
gulf, and would rather let the castle close upon himself than 
upon his country. I own, I always suspect this furious 
virtue ; the morals of prudery are always problematical. 
When I see this pliable patriotism, declaiming with surly 
indignation to day, and cringing with supple adulation to- 
morrow — in the morning Diogenes growling in his tub, in 
the evening Aristippus fawning in the antichamber, I al- 
ways suspect there is something behind the curtain more 
than meets the eye. I would ask some one of those en- 
larged and liberal politicians, does he think that the simple 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 8t 

executive government which is to be left in Ireland will 
be an improvement upon our situation, and does he know 
of no method to reform the parliament, except by annihi- 
lating it ? The noble lord may instruct him by retracing 
the speculations of his youthful days, and supply him with 
some of those plans of reform, which would not have cost 
him half so much trouble to carry as the extinction of the 
parliament. But what is to be the transfiguration of this 
parliament which is to glorify it, and how is this corrupti- 
ble to put on incorruption ? It is sentenced to death 
— in Ireland it is to suffer the death of a felon, but its res- 
urrection in Westminster, in the midst of angel purity and 
immaculate innocence, is, it seems, to compen'sate the loss 
of existence, and contrast the immoralities of its life. Alas, 
Sir, have these high priests of the new dispensation reveal- 
ed the truth to us as to this paradise of Westminster ? Do 
they know the British parliament who thus speak ? Do 
they think there is no borough patronage, or borough rep- 
resentation ? Do they suppose there are no placemen ? 
Do they conceive it a pool of Bethesda, in which our impu- 
rities are to be cleansed .'* Do they forget that this immac- 
ulate parliament, more than twenty years ago, declared 
by a vote, that the influence of the crown had increased 
among them, was increasing, and ought to be diminished ? 
Do they forget that the present prime minister declared 
eighteen years ago, that unless that assembly was radical- 
ly reformed the empire was lost ? Do they know that it 
has never been reformed since ? And do they think that 
one hundred Irish transplantations will reform it ? Have 
they ever considered that, there, ministerial influence pre- 
dominates so effectually, that the opposition has seceded in 
despair .? Have they ever visited this exhibition of pure 
representation .'' Have they ever looked at Mr. Pitt gov- 
erning that assembly by his nod, and scarcely concealing 
his own actual despotism within the forms of the constitu- 
tion ? 



88 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON. 
1812, BY RICHARD RUSH. 

When Britain shall pass from the stage of nations, it will 
be, indeed, with her glory, but it will also be with her 
shame. And with shame, will her annals in nothing more 
be loaded than in this, — that, while in the actual posses- 
sion of much relative freedom at home, it has been her 
uniform characteristic to let fall upon the remote subjects 
of her own empire, an iron hand of harsh and vindictive 
power. If, as is alleged irr her eulogy, to touch her soil 
proclaims emancipation to the slave, it is more true, that 
when her sceptre reaches beyond that confined limit, it 
thenceforth, as it menacingly waves throughout the globe, 
inverts the rule that v/ould give to her soil this puri- 
fying virtue. Witness Scotland, towards whom her treat- 
ment, until the union in the last century, was marked, dur- 
ing the longest periods, by perfidious injustice or by rude 
force, circumventing her liberties, or striving to cut them 
down with the sword. Witness Ireland, who for five centu- 
ries has bled, who, to the present hour, continues to bleed, 
under the yoke of her galling supremacy ; whose misera- 
ble victims seem at length to have laid down, subdued and 
despairing, under the multiplied inflictions of her cruelty 
and rigor. — In vain do her own best statesmen and patriots 
remonstrate against this unjust career ! in vain put forth the 
annual efforts of their benevolence, their zeal, their elo- 
quence ; in vain touch every spring that interest, that hu- 
manity, that the maxims of everlasting justice can move, to 
stay its force and mitigate the fate of Irishmen. — Alas, for 
the persecuted adherents of the cross she leaves no hope ! 
witness her subject millions in the east, where, in the de- 
scriptive language of the greatest of her surviving orators, 
^ sacrilege, massacre and perfidy pile up the sombre pyra- 
mids of her renown.' 

But, all these instances are of her fellow men, of merely 
co-equal, perhaps unknown descent and blood ; co-exist- 
ing from all time with herself, and making up only acci- 
dentally, a part of her dominion. We ought to have been 
spared. The otherwise undistinguishing rigor of this out- 
stretched sceptre might still have spared us. We were 
descended from her own loins ; bone of her bone, and flesh 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 89 

of her flesh ; not so much a part of her empire a« a part of 
herself — her very self Towards her own it might have 
been expected she would relent. When she invaded our 
homes, she saw her own countenance, heard her own 
voice, beheld her own altars ! Where was then that pure 
spirit which, she now would tell us. sustains her amidst self- 
sacrifices, in her generous contest for the liberties of other 
nations ? If it flowed in her nature, here, here it might 
have delighted to beam out ; here was space for its saving 
love : the true mother chastens, not destroys the child : 
but Britain, when she struck at us, struck at her own 
image, struck too at the immortal principles which her 
Lockes, her Miltons, and her Sydneys taught, and the fell 
blow severed us for ever, as a kindred nation ! The 
crime is purely her own ; and upon her, not us, be its 
consequences and its stain. 



EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH ON THE SEMINOLE WAR. HOP- 

KINSON. 

Mr. Chairman — If, after the discussion this subject has 
undergone, I were to promise the committee to present it 
with entire novelty, I should promise that which it is not 
in my power to perform ; and which would betray a pre- 
sumption, of which, I trust, I am incapable. I have the 
hope, however, that I may be able to offer some principles 
in relation to it, which have not yet been presented ; and 
are entitled to some influence on the decision of the com«- 
mittee, and to make some new applications of principles 
already established. 

The matters in controversy seem to me to obtain infinite 
importance, from the connexion they have with the charac- 
ter of our country. We stand in a most peculiar and res- 
]^onsible situation in this respect. The nations of Europe, 
from their contiguity, may be said to form a family or an 
association of nations, controlled by, and accountable to 
each other. They have alUances which all respect ; ties 
which all must feel ; balances and checks which all are 
interested to preserve, and rules of conduct, in their mu>- 
tual intercourse, which all are made to obey. The Amerj- 
8# 



90 THE NEW SPEAKER, 

can people, removed %• from the rest of the civilized world, 
and placed beyond the control of the policy or force of 
Europe, have ncme of those means to keep them to the 
path of justice. They acknowledge no guide authorized 
to direct them, but their own consciences ; and feel no re- 
sponsibility but to their Gfod. This, Sir, is a trying and a 
tempting sitiuation ; placing us on the highest ground of 
virtue, if we do not abuse it ; but exposing us to infinite 
danger from the suggestions oC pride, interest, and self- 
love. But, Sir, let us not forget that we belong to the 
family of civilized nations, and be most forward to prove 
our devotion to those rules of conduct, which the experi- 
ence and wisdom of ages have established, as necessary 
for the peace and usefulness of all. Let us cherish those 
laws which increase the blessings of peace, and mitigate 
the calamities of war. 

The dangers which our country may apprehend from the 
encouragement of a military spirit in Our people, have been 
eloquently portrayed on this occasion. It is undoubted- 
ly true that a strong disposition of this sort has been mani- 
fested, and was rapidly rising, in the people of the United 
States ; and a greater evil could hardly befal us than the 
consummation of its ascendancy. There is something so 
infatuating in the pomp and triumphs of war, that a young 
and brave people, who have known but little of its destruc- 
tive miseries, may require to be guarded against falling in- 
to the snare, and led to direct their energies to other and 
better objects. It is worthy of remark, that, in the various 
ways in which the genius and powers of man display them>' 
selves, the military course is the only one eminently dan- 
gerous to his species. Genius, in every other department, 
however dazzling and powerful, is never hurtful, is gener- 
ally a blessing to the world. The stupendous genius of 
Newton elevated the dignity of man, and brought him 
aearer to his God ; it gave him a path to walk in the firma- 
ment, and knowledge to hold converse with the stars. The 
erratic ooaaet cannot elude his vigilance ; nor the power- 
ful sun disappoint his calculations. Yet this genius, so 
mighty m the production of good, was harmless of evil as, 
a child. It never inflicted injury or pain on any thing that 
lives or feels. Shakspeare prepared an inexhaustible feast 
of instruction and delight fox his own age, and the ages i& 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 91 

come ; but he brought no tears into the world, but those 
of fictitious wo, which the other end of his wand was always 
ready to cure. It is military genius alone, that must be 
nourished with blood, and can find employment- only in 
inflicting misery and death upon man. 



NATIONAL GLORY. EXTRACT PROM A SPEECH OF MR. CLAY, 

We are asked, What have we gained by the war ? I 
have shown that we have lost nothing in rights, territory, 
or honor, nothing for which we ought to have contended, 
according to the principles of the gentlemen on the other 
side, or according to our own. Have we gained nothing 
by the war ? Let any man look at the degraded condition 
of this country before the war, the scorn of the universej, 
the contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained 
nothing by the war .'' What is our present situation .•* 
Respectability and character abroad, security and confi- 
dence at home. If we have not obtained, in the opinion 
of some, the full measure of retribution, our character and 
constitution are placed on a solid basis never to be shaken. 
The glory acquired by our gallant tars, by our Jacksons 
and our Browns on the land, is that nothing ? True, we 
had our vicissitudes, there were humiliating events which 
the patriot cannot review without deep regret — but the 
great account when it comes to be balanced will be found 
vastly in our favor. Is there a man who would obliterate 
from the proud pages of our history the brilliant achieve- 
ments of Jackson, Brown, and Scott, and the host of he- 
roes on land and sea, whom I cannot enumerate .'' Is 
there a man who could not desire a participation in the na- 
tional glory acquired by the war ? Yes, national glory, 
which, however the expression may be condemned by 
some, must be cherished by every genuine patriot. What 
do I mean by national glory ? Glory such as Hull, Jack- 
son, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insen- 
sible to their deeds — to the value of them in animating 
the country in the hour of peril hereafter .'' Did the battle 
of Thermopylae preserve Greece but once } Whilst the 
Mississippi continues to bear the tributes of the Iron 



92 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Mountains and the Alleghanies to her Delta and to the 
Gulf of Mexico, the eighth of January shall be remem- 
bered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate future pa- 
triots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen in driving 
the presumptuous invader from our country's soil. 

Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings 
inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would 
ask, does the recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and 
Yorktown afford them no pleasure ? Every act of noble 
sacrifice to the country, every instance of patriotic devo- 
tion to her cause has its beneficial influence. A nation's 
character is the sum of its splendid deeds ; they constitute 
one common patrimony, the nation's inheritance. They 
awe foreign powers, they arouse and animate our own 
people. I love true glory. It is this sentiment which 
ought to be cherished ; and, in spite of cavils, and sneers, 
and attempts to put it down, it will finally conduct this 
nation to that height to which God and nature have des- 
tined it. 



THE STATESMEN OF THE REVOLUTION.- 
OF JULY ORATION. 

If I have dwelt, fellow citizens, more than might seem 
to you necessary, on the merits of these peaceful fathers 
of our republic, it is because the times appear to me to 
demand it ; it is because there is, among us, too strong a 
disposition to lose sight of civil services, when brought in 
competition with mere mihtary renown. Far be it from 
me, to undervalue the merits and the services of military 
men. In our present imperfect state, they are, unfortu- 
nately for the world, too often necessary. But while we 
render due honor to the patriot warrior, we should never 
forget, what all history tells us, what our own experience 
confirms, that the claims of the patriot statesman are of a 
still higher order. 

It was the irresistible onset of their victorious eloquence, 
more powerfiil than the charge of armies ; it was their 
close array of argument, more dense than the phalanx of 
war, which expelled from our soil the principles and the 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 93 

dogmas of arbitrary power, which drove from our shores 
the maxims and the morals of tyrants and slaves. It was 
the gigantic force of their free thoughts, which beat down 
the towers of despotism, and let in the light of truth upon 
the startled minds of men. It was this march of intellect 
over its proudest field of triumph ; this war of the under- 
standing against the prejudices, the ignorance, and the er- 
rors of mankind, which gave us all that is great, and glo- 
rious, and happy, in our free republic. Of these men, it 
may be truly said, that ' the weapons of their warfare were 
not carnal, but mighty, to the pulling down of strong holds ; 
casting down imaginations, and every thing that exalteth 
itself against knowledge ; and bringing into captivity every 
thought to the obedience of truth.' These distinguished 
statesmen and patriots were the real authors of our inde- 
pendence ; and to them our first and largest debt of grati- 
tude is justly due. They laid the foundations of civil lib- 
erty deep in the understandings and the hearts of the 
American people. They breathed the breath of life into 
our nascent republic ; they expanded into manhood the 
intellect, they warmed into action the heart, of an infant 
world. They gave to the community that moral strength^ 
that enthusiasm of liberty, that ' courage of the cabinet,' 
so much more important, as well as more rare, than that 
mere animal courage, which enables its possessor 'to 
dwell, with composure, on scenes of hlood and carnage.' 



EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, 
IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT, IN WHICH HE CONDEMNS 
THE BURNING OF OUR CAPITOL BY THE BRITISH TROOPS. 

I RISE after my honorable relation, partly to express the 
pride, as well as pleasure, with which I have listened to his 
arguments, though I am obliged to controvert their justice. 
I would begin by avowing, however unfashionable such 
principles have now become, my partiality to America, be- 
cause she is not only bound to us by the ties of common 
origin, but by the closer fellowship of civil and religious 
liberty. The spirit of liberty gave us an American empire ; 
the spirit of domination has robbed us of it. Peace with 



M THE NEW SPEAKER. 

America, I consider as one of the greatest national advan- 
tages ; for of all separate objects of our foreign policy, I 
think friendship with America the second, the strength and 
security of Holland I allow to be the first. I have at all 
times equally lamented and reprobated those vulgar preju- 
dices, and that insolent language against the people of 
America, which has been of late so prevalent in this coun- 
try, and which has reached so extravagant a height, that 
men, respectable in character as well as station, have spok- 
en in this house of the deposition- of Mr. Madison as a jus- 
tifiable object of war, and have treated a gentleman of 
English extraction and education with a scurrility, which 
they must now be the first to regret, for no better reason 
than that we happened to be at war with the great repub- 
lic over which he presides. I do not therefore object so 
much to the treaty as to the address. I object to it because 
the treaty was not concluded sooner ; because the delay 
was unfavorable to its conditions, and above all, because 
the negotiations were not conducted in the spirit most like- 
ly to render the peace permanent. 

It is impossible to explain this delay unless on the miser- 
able policy of protracting the war for the sake of striking a 
blow against America. The disgrace of the naval war, of 
balanced success between the British navy and the new^ 
born marine of America, was to be redeemed by protracted 
warfare, and by pouring our armies, victorious in the 
mighty contests of Europe, upon the American shores. 
That opportunity, fatally for us, arose. Had the negotia- 
tion commenced sooner we should not have sent out orders 
for the attack on Washington. We should have been 
saved from that success, which I consider as a thousand 
times more disgraceful than the worst defeat. This suc- 
cess I charge to the delay of the negotiation. It was a 
success which made our naval power hateful and alarming 
to Europe. It was a success which gave the hearts of 
the American people to every enemy who might rise 
against England. It was an enterprise which most exas- 
perated a people, and least weakened a government, of 
any recorded in the annals of war. 

For every justifiable purpose of present warfare it was 
almost impotent. To every wise object of prospective 
policy it was hostile. It was an attack^ not against the 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 95 

strength or the resources of a state, but against the na- 
tional honor and pubUc affections of a people. After 
twenty five years of the fiercest warfare, in which every 
great capital of the European continent had been spared, 
I had almost said respected by enemies, it was reserved for 
England to violate all that decent courtesy towards the 
seats of national dignity, which, in the midst of enmity, 
manifests the respect of nations for each other, by an ex- 
pedition deliberately and principally directed against pala- 
ces of government, halls of legislation, tribunals of jus- 
tice, repositories of the muniments of property, and of the 
records of history — objects among civilized nations ex- 
empted from the ravages of war, and secured, as far as 
possible, even from its accidental operation, because they 
contribute nothing to the means of hostility, but are con- 
secrated to purposes of peace, and minister to the common 
and perpetual interest of all human society. It seems to 
me an aggravation of this atrocious measure, that minis- 
ters have attempted to justify the destruction of a distin- 
guished capital as a retaliation for some violences of infe- 
rior American officers, unauthorised and disavowed by 
their government, against I know not what village in Up- 
per Canada. To make such retaliation just, there must 
always be clear proof of the outrage ;' in general also, 
sufficient evidence that the adverse government refused to 
make due reparation for it, and at least some proportion of 
the punishment to the offence. Here there was very im- 
perfect evidence of the outrage — no proof of refusal to 
repair — and demonstration of the excessive and monstrous 
iniquity of what was falsely called retaliation. The value 
of a capital is not to be estimated by its houses, and ware- 
houses, and shops. It consists chiefly in what can neither 
be numbered nor weighed. It was not even by the ele- 
gance or grandeur of its monuments, that it was most dear 
to a generous people. They looked upon it with affection 
and pride as the seat of legislation, as the sanctuary of 
public justice, ofl;en as linked with the memory of past 
times, still rilore as connected with their fondest and 
proudest hopes of greatness to come. To put all these 
respectable feelings of a great people, sanctified by the 
illustrious name of Washington, on a level with half a 
dozen wooden sheds in the temporary seat of a provincial 



96 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

government, was an act of intolerable insolence, and im- 
plied as much contempt for the feelings of America, as 
for the common sense of mankind. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION ON THE PROSPECTS OF THE 
YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA. JULY 14, ISIS.-— -JOHN EVERETT. 

Love of America ! what principle of action should we 
suppose would operate with greater certainty, and force, 
— alas ! where is there one more feeble and limited ? The 
blessings of our institutions enwrap us like the air we 
breathe, with the very spirit of vitality itself, and like that 
we cannot believe their existence without an elaborate 
demonstration. The foresight of our ancestors, in no un- 
worthy imitation of Him who poured out the fluids of the 
atmosphere, has blended the different resistances of our 
constitution with exquisite skill ; a little less, and the very 
life blood would have started from the pores of the body 
politic. Yet amidst all this wonderful contrivance in the 
origin, and happy fulfilment in the operation of our gov- 
ernment, we still look abroad to the crumbling and rotting 
dynasties of Europe, with an unnatural aspiration ; — the 
children of, freedom, we exhaust our sympathies on ^ ty- 
rants,' and ' tyrants' slaves,' — and Wake from the vision 
of European baubles, to look with shame and discontent, 
on the massive proportions of our own national prosperity. 

Love of America ! we too have a kind of patriotism even 
here ; alas ! that we have no other. Like the fabulous 
spirit of the frozen ocean, in appearance more beautiful 
than the fairest of the daughters of earth, the rose of beau- 
ty was bright on her cheek, and perfection dwelt in the sym- 
metry of her form, yet no emotion had ever heightened the 
bloom on that cheek, no sigh of passion had ever agitated 
that marble bosom, and when her accents fell upon the 
air, they froze it to snow, with their icy coldness. Such is 
the love we feel for our country. There is fiothing gen- 
erous in its conception, nothing beneficial in its operation. 
When a burning and consuming glory is spread around 
the stars of our country's banner, perhaps we do not close 
our eyes to the immortal brilliancy. When our common 



THE NEW SPEAKER 97 

lenemy, the robber of our commerce, the despoiler of our 
cities, the incendiary of our public buildings and libraries, 
approaches our very household door, it is possible we do 
shut and guard it ; when the thief has entered our cham- 
bers, we thrust our purses still farther into our bosoms, 
and this is all ; and when the thunder cloud has passed 
over our land, and the harp of victory is ringing in the 
morning wind, after claiming the meed of the steadfast pa- 
triot in the hours of danger, we go on in the same cold 
and heartless carelessness of all the blessings which were 
endangered and secured. Oh ! it was not thus in the 
lands where liberty formerly dwelt, though her residence 
was purchased by more than an annual tribute of freemen's 
blood ! Leonidas waited not on the banks of the Eurotas, 
till the Persian had ravaged Attica ; and it was only when 
Rome had sunk into more than royal degradation, that the 
invasion of a frontier, or the loss of a province, were view- 
ed by her with indifference. In the virtuous days of 
Greece and Rome, love of country was their religion, its 
heroes their gods, its glory their reward. And even now, 
when the green and gilded snake of Ottoman domination 
has entwined itself around the mouldering ruins of the 
Grecian peristyle, and the descendant of the northern 
barbarian triumphs over the wasted relics of the Pantheon 
and the Palatine, many a broken heart goes abroad among 
the ruins of its former liberty, and wearies heaven with im- 
patient prayers for that gift we are so ready to relinquish. 
If you have failed to have the sentiment of devotion 
awakened in your bosoms by what I have uttered, 
— if I cannot persuade you to love America, do not, I 
beseech you, believe that it is because she is not lovely. 
But I trust in God the proof of her reputation with you, 
does not rest on this fainting form, and that, long before 
this faltering voice shall have sunk to the silence of death, 
the accents of eloquence and poetry shall be heard in her 
praise, the Promethean marble shall breathe for her, the 
burning painting shall speak her glory, and her sons, with 
religious ardor, shall build for her a character, which shall 
endure long after vice, and danger, cuid misery, shall have 
faded from the world. 
S 



98 THE NEW SPEAKEK. 

EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION DELIVERED IN BOSTON IN COM- 
MEMORATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN IND-E- 
PENDENCE. JULY 4, 1819. FRANKLIN DEXTER. 

It was a clear understanding of the principles of civil lib- 
erty, and an ardent attachment to it, that were the sole and 
consistent cause of the revolution. IVot the mere impatience 
of oppression, that sometimes wakes even a degraded peo- 
ple to resistance, to avenge their wrongs, rather than to 
assert their rights ; which groans and struggles in confine- 
ment, till there is no longer any thing to be lost — and then 
breaks out in violence and uproar, not to change the gov- 
ernment, but to annihilate it : not to redress the evils of 
society, but to sweep away society itself. We have seen 
such a revolution, and we may be proud that ours had 
nothing in common with it. We have seen a great nation 
shaken to its foundations, and bursting like a volcano only 
to shower down destruction on itself ; leaving its collossal 
form dark, bare, and blasted, with no grandeur but its ter- 
rors. Such was not our revolution ; but like the fire in 
our own forests, not scattered by the hand of accident or 
fury, but deliberately applied to the root of the growth of 
ages, which tottered and fell before it, only that from its ash- 
es might rise a new creation, where all was green, and 
fair, and flourishing. The world has learned by these exper- 
iments that civil liberty is not a mushroom, that grows up 
in a night from the fallen and rotten trunk of despotism, but 
a hardy plant that strikes deep, in a sound soil, and slowly 
gathers strength with years, till oppression withers in its 
shadow. Our present situation is a living proof of the 
difference of the two events. Liberty never yet was the 
work of an outraged and incensed populace ; as well might 
a whirlwind plant a paradise. 

Our revolution was not the result of such desperate feel- 
ings ; its authors were not driven to it, but chose it volun- 
tarily as the least of evils, where there was still a choice. 
They felt indeed, that they were deeply injured ; for they 
asked only the rights of Englishmen, and those were deni- 
ed them ; but they were not yet wholly oppressed ; they 
had still much to lose. They did not turn under the actual 
pressure and smart of injustice, for they had borne much 
heavier evils than that which was the immediate cause of 



THE NEW SPEAKER 99 

their resistance. But they saw that their liberties were 
formally and deliberately invaded ; that parliament was 
establishing principles of oppression^ that would fall heavy 
in practice on their children ; and they felt they had no 
right to endure it. It was not a suddep popular discontent, 
for their course was gradual, calm, and temperate. They 
were patient under suffering, while it was possible that the 
evil might be accidental and temporary ; but when they 
found they must resist, they did not y/edt to be trampled 
on. 

Nor was it a wild ambitious wish of independence with- 
out regard to its necessity. We could not wonder if such 

a feelino- had taken strong- hold of a fev/ adventurous ex- 
es o 

iles, thrown on a new world, whose rocky grandeur and 
forest wildness seemed the natural abode of liberty, and 
where there were none to dispute their possessions. If 
they had had a particle of the selfishness of ambition, 
what dreams of independence and aggrandisement might 
they not have indulged ! ' The world was all before them 
where to choose ' — and they chose to sit down quietly un- 
der the shadow of tiieir old country and constitution — de- 
pendent on that government which had driven them from 
their homes. Their whole character and history contra- 
dict the supposition that they ever aspired to independence, 
till they found they could not be free without it. And 
during the long struggle for liberty that preceded the de- 
claration of independence, though perhaps a few leading 
spirits foresaw the necessity of the measure, and were will- 
ing to meet it, it never was the wish of the people. Their 
repeated declarations of loyalty were as sincere as the 
complaints with >vhich they were mingled. They had had 
opportunities enough of throwing off their allegiance if 
they had wished it ; but they were faithilil to England 
through both her revolutions ; they were equally loyal to 
Charles and the commonwealth — to James and to William. 
Every thing shows that they separated from England, not 
because she excluded them from the privileges of union. 
Undoubtedly there is a time when the strength of a distant 
colony gives it a right to independence, because the pur- 
poses of society and government are best promoted by it ; 
and if our revolution had not been precipitated by the vio- 
lent measures of the English government, we should prob- 



100 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

ably have separated before now ; peaceably, if England 
understood her own mterest, or forcibly, in the exercise of 
the right to independence we had gained with our strength. 
But that natural period of separation had not arrived when 
the colonies were compelled to take their liberties into their 
ov/n hands ; for if their strength had been sufficient with- 
out the assistance of a foreign aiiy, they were still too lit- 
tle united to justify the experiment while they enjoyed the 
protection of the English constitution. But when that fail- 
ed them, they would not deliberate whether they had 
strength and union to resist, or whether they should wait 
till they had acquired them ; for a few years of oppression 
would have extinguished in the people the spirit that alone 
could carry them through a revolution ; that enlightened 
spirit of liberty, which pervaded their feelings, manners, and 
institutions, and produced a character even mare remarka- 
ble than their destiny. 



EXTRACT FROM AX ORATION DELIVERED IX XEWBURYPORT 
IiV COMMEMORATION OF THE IXDEFEXDEXCE OF AMERICA. 
JULY 4, 1821. CALEB CUSHIXG. 

Ix this age, the universal demand of the people of Eu- 
rope IS to have their freedom guaranteed to them by con- 
stitutions. Their demand is opposed only by those few in 
number, the kings, nobles, prelates, and aristocracy, who, 
feeling their privileges to be incompatible with popular 
right, are anxious to stop the tide of innovation and reform, 
because they themselves must be the first to be swept away 
in its progress. But as well might they hope with Xerxes, 
to chain the sea, as think their usurped immunities and 
empty titles can withstand the triumphant career of im- 
provement. Religion has revealed that all men are de- 
scended from a common stock and are destined to the 
same end, and it has commanded them to be free. The 
press, vainly as tyranny has endeavored to destroy its in- 
fluence, the press has been proclaiming to them, with its 
thousand tongues, the sacred principles of justice and hu- 
manity. And if there be any upon whose heart religion 
has no hold, any whom the winged emissaries of the press 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 101 

have failed to reach — nature herself has engraven and 
stamped upon their souls the charter of freedom, filling the 
veins of the peasant vi^ith blood as pure as that which man- 
tles in the brow of the noble, and maintaining their equal- 
ity with a voice, which is irresistible, because the voice of 
nature is the voice of nature's God. 

What expedient then shall the established governments 
of Europe employ to avert the rapid advancement of liberal 
principles ? Will they put their trust in the blind respect, 
with which mankind have been accustomed to regard su- 
perior birth ? They might have done this in the dark ages 
when the vassal was but little raised in estimation above 
the brute beasts in whose company he tilled the soil ; but 
centuries are since gone, and the oppressed and the op- 
pressor have descended to the tomb together, where their 
remains are mouldering and corrupting into the same un- 
distinguishable dust. So capricious and changeable is 
fortune that the very name of the haughty lords of other . 
times are preserved only in the fugitive and decaying re- 
cords of the historian, their race extinct, their titles trans- 
ferred to the upstart courtier of yesterday, and their pala- 
ces become the banqueting-hall in which the posterity of 
their meanest slave may now be revelling as gaily and ar- 
rogantly as ever they did in the proudest moments of their 
glory. 

Yes : vainly would European despots enlist for their safe- 
guard, every mercenary band which the influence of gold 
can league together : the spirit of improvement and freedom 
has gone forth among the people, and cannot be recalled 
from its glorious mission : the silent progress of knowl- 
edge is gradually, but irresistibly, undermining the sinking 
and crumbling fabric of arbitrary power, and fall it must, 
in spite of all the efforts of the servile and ambitious, who 
impiously endeavor to renovate its departed strength, when 
the voice of Heaven has pronounced its overthrow. 

Glance for a moment at the situation of Europe, and do 
you not find that every where the standard of reform is lift- 
ed up on high, as the brazen serpent was raised in the 
camp of the children of Israel, that whoever will gaze upon 
its glittering folds, and rally around it, shall be saved ? — 
Hear you not the enthusiastic cry for liberty re-echoed 
from every hill and valley in Europe, rousing its inhabit- 
9* 



1(B THE NEW SPEAKEE. 

ants from the deep slumber of servitude like a thrilling 
and awakening trumpet-call ? — Wherever you fix your 
eyeSj are they not struck with signs of the gathering tem- 
pest, with indications of the earthquake coming to shake 
open the iron gates and hurl down the towering battlements 
of that vast prison house, with which feudal tyranny has 
fondly thought to overawe and keep in slavery the fairest 
regions upon earth ? 

What American is there, who does not long to see the 
constitutional and republican principles of the Federal 
Union universally disseminated, as thesDnly method of giv- 
ing a stable foundation to freedom, and delivering the civiliz- 
ed world from the horrors of war ? If the nations of Europe 
desire to have their soil cease to be watered with human 
blood, as it has continually been from the earliest record of 
history down to the present hour ; if they wish to have sci- 
ence and the arts with all the blessings of social life flourish, 
as they never yet have done, under the genial and auspi- 
cious influence of universal peace ; let them unite together, 
like the states of America, in a perpetual league of amity, 
which, leaving the rights of each nation unimpaired, shall 
have for its only ends the support of peace and the accel- 
eration of public improvement. The great obstacle to the 
establishment of concord among nations is the want of any 
common superior to whom their differences may be refer- 
red for adjudication. While men were in a state of nature, 
previous to the formation of political society, the hand of 
every individual must have been turned against his fellows, 
because they had no resource for the adjustment of dis- 
putes, excepting violence. So it is now with respect to 
nations. And as the grandest invention ever yet bestowed 
upon the human race is that of political societies, so there 
is a grander still, which remains,' and that is the institution 
of a federal union embracing within its ample jurisdiction 
all the civilized nations of the globe. Then, but not be- 
fore, may we hope to see the hatchet buried beneath the 
olive tree of peace, which sending its roots broadly and 
deeply into the earth, shall stretch forth its branches to 
overshadow the universe. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 103 

EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, 
JULY 4, 1826. E. EVERETT. 

The greatest engine of moral power, which human na- 
ture knows, is an organized, prosperous state. All that 
man, in his individual capacity, can do — all that he can 
effect by his fraternities, by his ingenious discoveries and 
wonders of art, or by his influence over others, is as noth- 
ing, compared with the collective, perpetuated influence 
on human affairs and human happiness, of a well consti- 
tuted, powerful commonwealth. It blesses generations 
v/ith its sweet influence ; even the barren earth seems to 
pour out its fruits under a system where property is se- 
cure, while her fairest gardens are blighted by despotism. 
Men — thinking, reasoning men, abound beneath its benig- 
nant sway, — -nature enters into a beautiful accord, a bet- 
ter, purer consent with man, and guides an industrious citi- 
zen to every rood of her smiling wastes ; and we see, at 
length, that what has been called a slate of nature, has 
been most falsely, calumniously so denominated ; that the 
nature of man is neither that of a savage, a hermit, nor a 
slave ; but that of a member of a well ordered family, that 
of a good neighbour, a free citizen, a well informed, good 
man, acting with others like him. This is the lesson 
which is taught in the charter of our independence ; this 
is the lesson, which our example is to teach the world. 

The epic poet of Rome — the faithful subject of an ab- 
solute prince — in unfolding the duties and destinies of his 
countrymen, bids them to look down with disdain on the 
polished and intellectual arts of Greece, and deem their 
arts to be, 

To rule the nations with imperial sway. 

To spare the tribes that yield ; fight down the proud ; 

And force the mood of peace upon the world. 

A nobler counsel breathes from" the charter of our inde- 
pendence ; a happier province belongs to our free repub- 
lic. Peace we would extend, but by persuasion and exam- 
ple — the moral force, by which alone it can prevail among 
the nations. Wars we may encounter ; but it is in the 
sacred character of the injured and the wronged ; to raise 
the trampled rights of humanity from the dust ; to rescue 
the miW form of Liberty, from her abode among the pris 



104 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

ons and the scaffolds of the elder world, and to set her in 
the chair of state among her adoring children ; — to givfe 
her beauty for ashes ; a healthful action for cruel agony ; 
to put at last a period to her warfare on earth ; to tear her 
star-spangled banner from the perilous ridges of battle, 
and plant it on the rock of ages. There be it fixed forev- 
er, — the power of a free people slumbering in its folds;^ 
their peace reposing in its shade I 



EXTRACT FROM A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, 
DECEMBER 22, 1820, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST 
SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND. D. WEBSTER. 

The settlement of New England by the colony which 
landed here on the twentysecond of December, sixteen 
hundred and twentj, although not the first European estab- 
lishment in what now constitutes the United States, was 
yet so peculiar in its causes and character, and has been 
followed, and must still be followed, by such conse- 
quences as to give it a high claim to lasting commemora- 
tion. On these causes and conse(juences, more than on 
its immediately attending circumstances, its importance as 
an historical event depends. Great actions and striking 
occurrences, having excited a temporary admiration, often 
pass away and are forgotten, because they leave no pass- 
ing results, affecting the prosperity and happiness of com- 
munities. Such is frequently the fortune of the most bril- 
liant military achievements. 

But if this be frequently, or generally, the fortune of 
military achievements, it is not always so. There are en- 
terprises, military as well as civil, which sometimes check 
the current of events, give a new turn to human affairs, 
and transmit their consequences through ages. We see 
their importance in their results, and call them great, be- 
cause great things follow. There have been battles which 
have fixed the fate of nations. These come down to us 
in history with a solid and permanent interest, not created 
by a display of glittering armour, the rush of adverse bat- 
talions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the 
pursuit, and the victory j but by their effect in advancing 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 105 

or retarding human knowledge, in overthrowing or estab- 
lishing despotism, in extending or destroying human hap- 
piness. When the traveller passes on the plain of Mara- 
thon, what are the emotions which most strongly agitate 
his breast ? What is that glorious recollection, which 
thrills through his frame, and suffuses his eyes .'' — Not, I 
imagine, that Grecian skill and Grecian valor were here 
most signally displayed ; but that Greece herself was here 
saved. It is because to this spot, and to the event which 
has rendered it immortal, he refers all the succeeding 
glories of the republic. It is because if that day had 
gone otherwise^ Greece had perished. It is because he 
perceives that her philosophers and orators, her poets 
and painters, her sculptors and architects, her govern- 
ments and free institutions, point backward to Marathon, 
and that their future existence seems to have been sus- 
pended on the contingency, whether the Persian or the 
Grecian banner should wave victorious in the beams of 
that day's setting sun. 

* If we conquer,' said the Athenian commander on the 
morning of that decisive day, — ' If we conquer, we shall 
make Athens the greatest city of Greece.' A prophecy, 
how well fulfilled !— -'If God prosper us,' might have been 
the moie appropriate language of our fathers, when they 
landed upon this rock, — ' if God prosper us, we shall here 
begin a work which shall last for ages ; we shall plant 
here a new society, in the principles of the fullest liberty, 
and the purest religion : we shall subdue this wilderness 
which is before us ; we shall fill this region of the great 
continent, which stretches almost from pole to pole, with 
civilization and Christianity ; the temples of the true God 
shall rise, where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous 
sacrifice ; fields and gardens, the flowers of summer, and 
the waving and golden harvests of autumn, shall extend 
over a thousand hills, and stretch along a thousand vallies, 
never yet, since the creation, reclaimed to the use of civi- 
lized man. We shall whiten this coast with the canvass 
of a prosperous commerce ; we shall stud the long and 
winding shore with a hundred cities. That which we sow 
in weakness shall be raised in strength. From our sin- 
cere but houseless worship, there shall spring splendid 
temples to record God's goodness ; from the simplicity of 



Ibe THE NEW SPEAKER. 

cmr social union, there shall arise wise and palitic consti- 
tutions of government, full of liberty which we ourselves 
bring and breathe ; from our zeal for learning, institutions 
shall spring, which shall scatter the light of knowledge 
throughout the land, and, in time, paying back where they 
have borrowed, shall contribute their part to the great ag- 
gregate of human knowledge ; and our descendants, 
through all generations, shall look back to this spot, and 
to this hour, with unabated affection and regard.' 



SEC0:SD EXTRACT FROM THE SAME. 

Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. 
Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration 
I for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, 
and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its 
principles with the elements of their society, and to diifuse 
its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, 
and literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend 
this influence stdl more widely, in the full conviction, that 
that is the happiest society, which partakes in the highest 
degree of the mild and peaceable spirit of Christianity. 
. The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occa- 
sion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children 
can expect to behold its return. They are in tlie dislant 
regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating 
power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years 
hence, to trace, through us, their descent from. the Pil- 
grims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the pro- 
gress of their country, during the lapse of a century. We 
would anticipate their concurrence with us in our senti- 
ments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We 
would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they 
will then recount the steps of New England's advance- 
ment. On the morning of that day, although it will not 
disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and 
gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be 
transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, 
till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. 

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall 



THE NEW SPEAKER lOt 

then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the bless- 
ings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation ; some 
proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, 
and of civil and religious liberty ; some proof of a sincere 
and ardent desire to promote every thing which may en- 
large the understandings and improve the hearts of men. 
And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, 
they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, 
that we possessed affections, which, running backward, and 
warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done 
for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and 
meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have ar- 
rived on the shore of being. 

Advance, then, ye future generations ! We would hail 
you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places 
which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, 
where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own 
human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant 
land of the Fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful 
skies; and the verdant fields of New England. We greet 
your accession to the great inheritance which we have en- 
joyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good govern- 
ment, and religious liberty. We welcome you to the trea- 
sures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome 
you to the transcendant sweets of domestic life, to the 
happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We wel- 
come you to the immeasurable blessings of rational exist- 
ence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of 
everlasting truth. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION ON THE SETTLEMENT OP NEW 
ENGLAND, DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, 1824. ^EVERETT. 

It is the peculiar character of the enterprise of our 
pilgrim forefathers — successful indeed in its outset— that it 
has been more and more successful, at every subsequent 
point in the line of time. — Accomplishing all they project- 
ed ; what they projected was the least part of what has 
been accomplished. Forming a design, in itself grand, 
bold, and even appalling, for the sacrifices it required, and 



108 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

the risks it involved ; the fulfilment of that design is the 
least thing, which, in the steady progress of events, has 
flowed from their counsels and their efforts. — Did they pro- 
pose to themselves a refuge beyond the sea, from the reli- 
gious and political tyranny of Europe ? They achieved 
not that alone, but they have opened a wide asylum to all 
the victims of tyranny throughout the world. We ourselves 
have seen the statesmen, the generals, the kings of the 
elder world, flying for protection to the shadow of our in- 
stitutions. Did they wish only to escape to a remote corner, 
where the arm of oppression could not reach them .'' They 
founded a great realm, an imperial patrimony of liberty, 
the first effectual counterpoise in the scale of human right. 
Did they look for a retired spot, inoffensive for its obscuri- 
ty and safe in its remoteness, where the little church of 
Leyden might enjoy the freedom of conscience ? Behold 
the mighty regions over which, in peaceful conquest, they 
have borne the banners of the cross, — Did they seek, be- 
neath the protection of trading charters, to prosecute a 
frugal commerce in reimbursement of the expenses of 
their humble establishment ? The fleets and navies of 
their descendants are on the farthest ocean ; and the 
wealth of the Indies is now wafted- with every tide to the 
coasts, where with hook and line they painfully gathered up 
their little adventures. — In short, did they, in their bright- 
est and most sanguine moments, contemplate a thrifty, 
loyal, and prosperous colony — portioned off*, hke a younger 
son of the imperial household, to an humble, a dutiful dis- 
tance ? Behold the spectacle of an independent and pow- 
erful republic, founded on the shores where some of those 
are but lately deceased, who saw the first-born of the 
pilgrims. 

And shall we stop here .'' Is the tale now told ; is the 
contrast now complete ; are our destinies all fulfilled ; 
have we reached the meridian ; are we declining ; are we 
stationary ^ My friends, I tell you, we have but begun ; 
we are in the very morning of our days ; our numbers are 
but an unit : our national resources but a pittance ; our 
hopeful achievements in the political, the social, and the 
intellectual nature, are but the rudiments of what the chil- 
dren of the pilgrims must yet attain. If there is anything 
certain in the principles of human and social progress ; if 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 109 

there Is any thing clear in the deductions from past histo- 
ry ; if there is any, the least, reliance to be placed on the 
conclusions of reason, in regard to the nature of man, the 
existing spectacle of our country's growth, magnificent as 
it is, does not suggest even an idea of what it must be. I 
dare adventure the prediction, that he who shall stand 
where I stand, two centuries hence, and look back on our 
present condition from a distance, equal to that from which 
We contemplate the first settlement of the pilgrims, will 
sketch a contrast far more astonishing ; and will speak of 
our times as the day of small things, in stronger and juster 
language, than any in which we can depict the poverty 
and wants of our fathers. 

While, therefore, the work of social renovation is en- 
tirely hopeless in Europe, we cannot but regard it as the 
plain interposition of Providence, that at the critical point 
of time, when the most powerful springs of improvement 
were in operation, a chosen company of pilgrims, who 
were actuated by these springs of improvement, in all 
their strength, who had purchased the privilege of dissent 
at the high price of banishment from the civilized world, 
and who, with the dust of their feet, had shaken off the 
antiquated abuses and false principles, which had been ac- 
cumulating for thousands of years, came over to these dis- 
tfCnt, unoccupied shores. I know not that the work of 
thorough reform could be safely trusted to any other 
h^nds. I can credit their disinterestedness, when they 
maintain the equality of ranks ; for no rich forfeitures of 
attainted lords await them in the wilderness. I need not 
question the sincerity with which they assert the rights of 
conscience ; for the plundered treasures of an ancient 
hierarchy are not to seal their doctrine. They rested the 
edifice of their civil and religious liberties on a fonndation 
as pure and innocent as the snows around them. Blessed 
be the spot, the only one on earth, where such a founda- 
tion was ever laid. Blessed be the spot, the only one on 
«arth, wh«re man has attempted to establish the good, 
without beginning with the sad, the odious, the too suspi- 
cious task of pulling down the bad. 
10 



ilO THE NEW SPEAKER. 

SECOND EXTRACT ADVANTAGES OF AN ENGLISH ORIGIN. 

EVERETT. 

Who does not feel, what reflecting American does not 
acknowledge, the incalculable- advantages derived to this 
land, out of the deep fountains of civil, intellectual, land 
moral truth, from which we have drawn in England ? — 
What American does not feel proud that he is descended 
from the countrymen of Bacon, of Nev/ton, and of Locke ? 
— Who does not know, that while every pulse of civil lib- 
erty in the heart of the British empire beat warm and full 
in the bosom of our fathers ; the sobriety, the firmness, 
and the dignity with which the cause of free principles 
struggled into existence here, constantly found encourage- 
ment and countenance from the sons of liberty there ? — 
Who does not remember that when the pilgrims went over 
the sea, the prayers of the faithful British con'fessors, in 
all the quarters of their dispersion, went over with them, 
while their aching eyes were strained, till the star of hope 
should go up in the western skies ? — And who will ever 
forget that in that eventful struggle, which severed this 
mighty empire from the British crown, there was not heard, 
throughout our continent in arms, a voice which spoke loud- 
er for the rights of America, than that of Burke or of Chat- 
ham, within the walls of the British parliament, and at the 
foot of the British throne ? — No, for myself, I can truly 
say, that after my native land, I feel a tenderness and rev- 
erence for that of my fathers. The pride I take in my own 
country makes me respect that from which we are sprung. 
In touching the soil of England, I seem to return like a des- 
cendant to the old family seat ; — to come back to the abode 
of an aged, the tomb of a departed parent, I acknowl- 
edge this great consanguinity of nations. The sound of 
my native language beyond the sea, is a musick to my ear^ 
beyond the richest strains of Tuscan softness, or Castilian 
majesty. — I am not yet in a land of strangers, while sur- 
rounded by the manners, the habits, the forms, in which I 
have been brought up. I wander delighted through a thou- 
sand scenes, which the historians, the poets have made fam- 
iliar to us, — of which the names are interwoven with our 
earliest associations. I tread with reverence the spots, 
where I can retrace the footsteps of our suffering fathers ; 



THE NEW SPEAKER. Ill 

the pleasant land of their birth has a claim on my heart. 
It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land, rich in the 
memories of the great and good ; the martyrs of liberty, 
the exiled heralds of truth ; and richer as the parent of 
this land of promise in the west. 

I am not, — I need not say I am not, — the panegyrist of 
Eno-land. I am not dazzled by her riches, nor awed by her 
power. The sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet, stars, gar- 
ters, and blue ribbons seem to me poor things for great men 
to contend for. JVor is my admiration awakened bv her 
armies, mustered for the battles of Europe ; her navies, 
overshadowing the ocean ; nor her empire grasping the far- 
thest east. It is these, and the price of guilt and blood by 
vrhich they are maintained, which are the cause why no 
friend of liberty can salute her with undivided affections. 
But it is the refuge of free principles, though often perse- 
cuted ; the school of religious lilDerty, the more precious 
for the strgugles to which it has been called ; the tombs 
of those who have reflected honor on all who speak the 
English tongue ; it is the birthplace of our fathers, the 
home of the pilgrims ; it is these which I love and venerate 
in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for 
Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. 
In an American it would seem to me degenerate and un- 
grateful, to hang with passion upon the traces of Homer 
and Virgil, and follow without emotion the nearer and 
plainer footsteps of Shakspeare and Milton ; and I should 
think him cold in his love for his native land, who felt no 
meltins in his heart for that other native land, which holds 
the ashes of his forefathers. 



THIRD EXTRACT SUFFERlXCS OF THE PILGROIS. EVERETT. 

• But it was not enough that our forefathers were of Eng- 
land : the masters of Ireland, and the lords of Hindostan 
are of England too. But our fathers were Englishmen, as,- 
grieved, persecuted, and banished. It is a principle, amply 
borne out by the history of the great and powerful nations 
of the earth, and by that of none more than of New Eng- 
land, that the best fruits and choicest action of the com- 



112 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

mendable qualities of the national character, are to be 
found on the side of the oppressed few, and not of the 
triumphant many. As in private character, adversity is 
often requisite to give a proper direction and temper to 
strong qualities ; so the noblest traits of national charac- 
ter, even under the freest and most independent of here- 
ditary governments, are com'monly to be sought in the 
ranks of a protesting minority, or of a dissenting sect. 
Never was this truth more clearly illustrated than in the 
settlement of New England. 

Could a common calculation of policy have dictated the 
terms of that settlement, no doubt our foundations would 
have been laid beneath the royal smile. Convoys and na- 
vies would have been solicited to waft our fathers to the 
coast ; armies, to defend the infant communities ; and 
the flattering patronage of princes and lords, to espouse 
their interests in the councils of the mother country. Hap- 
py, that our fathers enjoyed no such patronage ; happy, 
that they fell into no such protecting hands ; happy, that 
our foundations v/ere silently and deeply cast in quiet in- 
significance, beneath a charter of banishment, persecution, 
and contempt ; so that when the royal arm was at length 
outstretched against us, instead of a submissive child, tied 
down by former graces, it found a youthful giant in. the 
land, born amidst hardships, and nourished on the rocks, 
indebted for no favors, and owing no duty. From the 
dark portals of the star chamber, and in the stern text of 
the acts of uniformity, the pilgrims received a commission, 
more efficient, than any that ever bore the royal seal. 
Their banishment to Holland was fortunate ; the decline 
of their little company in the strange land was fortunate ; 
the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal 
consent to banish themselves to this wilderness were for- 
tunate ; all the tears and heart breakings of that ever 
memorable parting at Delfthaven, had the happiest influ- 
ence on the rising destinies of New England. All this 
purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches 
of fortune brushed off* the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. 
They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and 
required of those who engaged in it, to be so too. They 
cast a broad shadow of tliought and seriousness over the 
cause, and if this sometimes deepened into melancholy 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 113 

and bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human 
weakness ? 

It is sad indeed to reflect on the disasters, which the 
little band of pilgrims encountered. Sad to see a portion 
of them, the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously 
embarked in an unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they 
are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into 
one vessel ; one hundred persons, besides the ship's com- 
pany, in a vessel of one hundred and sixty tons. One is 
touched at the story of the long, cold, ajod weary autumnal 
passage ; of the landing on the inhospitable rocks at this 
dismal season ; where they are deserted before long by 
the ship, which had brought them, and which seemed their 
only hold upon the world of fellow men, a prey to the ele- 
ments and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numbers, 
the power, and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled 
the unexplored continent, upon whose verge they had ven- 
tured. But all this wrought together for good. These 
trials of wandering and exile, of the ocean, the winter, the 
wilderness and the savage foe were the final assurance of 
success. It was these that put far away from our fathers' 
cause, all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to pre- 
eminence. No effeminate nobility crowded into the dark 
and austere ranks of the pilgrims. No Carr or Villiers 
would lead on the ill provided band of despised puritans. 
No well endowed clergy were on the alert, to quit their 
cathedrals, and set up a pompous hierarchy in the frozen 
wilderness. No craving governors were anxious to be 
sent over to our cheerless El Dorados of ic3 and snow. 
No, they could not say they had encouraged, patronised, 
or helped the pilgrims ; their own cares, their own labors, 
their own councils, their own blood, contrived all, achieved 
all, bore all, sealed all. They could not afterwards fairly 
pretend to reap where they had not strown ; and as our 
fathers reared this broad and solid fabric with pains and 
watchfulness, unaided, barely tolerated, it did not fall when 
the favor, which had always been withhoiden, was changed 
into wrath ; when the arm which had never supported, was 
raised to destroy. 

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous 

vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the 

prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown 

sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the 

10* 



{14 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

uncerfain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and 
weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the 
deep, but brings them riot the sight of the wished for 
shore. I see them now scantily suppHed with provisions, 
crowded almost to suffocation in their illstored prison, de- 
layed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route ; — and now 
driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and 
giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through 
the rigging. The laboring masts seem strained from their 
base ; — the dismal sound of the pumps is heard ; — the 
ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow ; — the 
ocean breaks, and settles with engulphing floods over the 
floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight, 
against the staggered vessel. — I see them, escaped from 
these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, 
and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice 
clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary from the voy- 
age, — poorly armed, s'cantily provisioned, depending bn 
the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on 
board, drinking nothing but water on shore, — without shel- 
ter, — without means, — surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut 
now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle 
of human probability, what shall be the fate of this hand- 
ful of adventurers. — Tell me, man of military science, in 
how many months were they all swept off by the thirty 
savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of ISew 
England ? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow 
of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had 
not smiled, languish on the distant coast ? Student of his- 
tory, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted 
settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and 
find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beat- 
ing upon the houseless heads of women and children ; Was 
it hard labor and spare meals ; — was it disease, — was it 
the tomahawk, — was it the deep malady of a blighted 
hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in 
its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left, 
beyond the sea ; was it some, or all of these united, that 
hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate } — 
And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all 
combined, Were able to blast this bud of hope ?-^Is it pes- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 115 

sible, that from a beginmng so feeble, so frail, so worthy, 
not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth 
a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion 
so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be ful- 
filled, so glorious ? 

I do not fear that we shall be accused of extravagance 
in the enthusiasm we feel at a train of events of such as- 
tonishinij magnitude, novelty, and consequence, connected 
by associations so intimate, with the day we now hail ; 
with the events we now celebrate ; with the pilgrim fath- 
ers of New England. Victims of persecution ! how wide 
an empire acknowledges the sway of your principles ! 
Apostles of liberty ! what millions attest the authenticity 
of your mission ! Meek champions of truth, no stain of 
private interest or of innocent blood is on the spotless 
garments of your renown ! The great continents of 
America have become, at length, the theatre of your 
achievements ; the Atlantic and the Pacific, the highways 
of communication, on which your principles, your institu- 
tions, your example are borne. From the oldest abodes 
of civilization, the venerable plains of Greece, to the 
scarcely explored range of the Cordilleras, the impulse 
you gave at length is felt. While other regions revere 
you as the leaders of this great march of humanity, we 
are met on this joyful day, to oflfer to your memories our 
tribute of filial affection. The sons and daughters of the 
pilgrims, we have assembled on the spot where you, our 
suffering fathers, set foot on this happy shore. Happy in- 
deed, it has been for us. O that you could have enjoyed 
those blessings, which you prepared for your children. 
Could our comfortable homes have shielded you from the 
wintry air ; could our abundant harvests have supplied 
you in time of famine ; could the broad shield of our be- 
loved country have sheltered you from the visitations of 
arbitrary power ! We come in our prosperity to remember 
your trials ; and here on the spot where New England be- 
gan to be, we come to learn of our pilgrim fathers a deep 
and lasting lesson of Virtue, enterprise, patience, zeal, and 
faith ! 



ne THE NEW SPEAKER. 

EXTRACT FROM A CENTENNIAL DISCOURSE IN COMMEMO- 
RATION OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF SALEM, MASSA- 
CHUSETTS. STORY. 

To US it would not be matter of regret, much less of 
reproach, if we jcould count among our ancestors only the 
humble, the poor, and the forlorn. Rank, station, talents, 
and learning did indeed add lustre to their acts, and im- 
part a more striking dignity to their sufferings, by giving 
them a bolder relief But it was the purity of their prin- 
ciples, their integrity, and devout piety, which constituted 
the solid fabric of their fame. It was Christianity, which 
cast over their character its warm and glorious light, and 
gave it an everlasting freshness. It was their faith in 
God, which shed such beauty over their lives, and clothed 
this mortal with the form of immortality. In coi ». arison 
with these, the distinctions of this world, however high or 
various they may be, are but evanescent points, a drop to 
the ocean, an instant to eternity, a ray of light to the in- 
numerable fires which blaze on unconsumed in the skies. 

Let us rejoice then at our origin with an honest joy. 
Let us exultingly hail this day as one of glorious memory. 
Let us proudly survey this land, the land of our fathers. 
It is our precious inheritance. It was watered by their 
tears ; it was subdued by their hands ; it was defended by 
their valor ; it was consecrated by their virtues. Where 
is the empire, which has been won with su much inno- 
cence ? Where is the empire, which has been maintained 
with so much moderation .'* 

There are those around me, whose hearts beat hi-gh, 
and whose lips grow eloquent, when the remembrance of 
such ancestors comes over their thoughts ; when they read 
in their deeds, not the empty forms, but the essence of 
holy living and dying. Time was, when the exploits of 
war, the heroes of many battles, the conquerors of mil- 
lions, the men who waded through slaughter to thrones, 
the kings, whose footsteps were darkened with blood, and 
the sceptred oppressors of the earth, were alone deemed 
worthy themes for the poet and the orator, for the song of 
the minstrel, and the hosannas of the multitude. Time 
was, when feats of arms, and tournaments, and crusades, 
and the high array of chivalry, and the pride of royal 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 117- 

banners waving for victory, engrossed all minds. Time 
was, when the ministers of the altar sat down by the side 
of the tyrant and numbered his victims, and stimulated his 
persecutions, and screened the instruments of his crimes — 
and there was praise, and glory, and revelry for these 
things. But these times have passed away. Christianity 
has resumed her meek and holy reign. The Puritans 
have not lived in vain. The simplicity of the pilgrims of 
New England casts into shade this false glitter, which 
dazzled and betrayed men into the worship of their de- 
stroyers. 



EXTRACT FROM MR. WEBSTER S SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES ON PRESENTING THE FOLLOWING RES- 
OLUTION. 

^Resolved — That provision ought to he made, by Iaio,for 
defraying the expense incident to the appointment of an Agent or 
commissioner to Greece^ whenever, the Presideiit shall deem it 
expedient.'^ 

Sir, this reasoning mistakes the age. The time has 
been, indeed, when fleets, and armies, and subsidies, were 
the principal reliances even in the best cause. But happi- 
ly for mankind, there has come a great change in this re- 
spect. Moral causes come into consideration, in propor- 
tion as the progress of knowledge is advanced ; and the 
public opinion of the civilized world is rapidly gaining an 
ascendancy over mere brutal force. It is already able to 
oppose the most formidable obstruction to the progress of 
injustice and oppression ; and, as it grows more intelligent 
and more intense, it will be more and more formidable. It 
may be silenced by military powder, but it cannot be con- 
quered. It is elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to 
the weapons of ordinary warfare. It is that impassible, 
unextinguishable enemy of mere violence and arbitrary 
rule, which, like Milton's angels, 



« Vital in every part, 

Cannot, but by annihilating die.' 

Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is vain for power 



118 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

to talk either of triumphs or of repose. No matter what 
fields are desolatedj what fortresses surrendered, what ar- 
mies subdued, or what provinces overrun. In the history 
of the year that has passed by us, and in the instance of 
unhappy Spain, we have seen the vanity of all triumphs, in 
a cause which violates the general sense of justice of the 
civilized world. It is nothing, that the troops of France 
have passed from the Pyrenees to Cadiz ; it is nothing 
that an unhappy and prostrate nation has fallen before 
them ; it is nothing that arrests, and confiscation, and ex- 
ecution," sweep away the little remnant of national resist- 
ance. There is an enemy that still exists to check the 
glory of these triumphs. It follows the conqueror back to 
the very scene of his ovations ; it calls upon him to take 
notice that Europe though silent, is yet indignant ; it shows 
him that the sceptre of his victory is a barren sceptre ; 
that it shall confer neither joy nor honor, but shall mould- 
er to dry ashes in his grasp. In the midst of his exulta- 
tion, it pierces his ear with the cry of injured justice, it de- 
nounces against him the indignation of an enlightened and 
civilized age ; it turns to bitterness the cup of his rejoic- 
ing, and wounds him with the sting which belongs to the 
consciousness of having outraged the opinion of mankind. 

I shall not detain the committee, Mr Chairman, by any 
attempt to recite the events of the Greek struggle, up to 
the present time. 

Sir, they have done mu^h. It would be great injustice 
to compare their achievements with our own. We began 
our revolution, already possessed of government, and, 
comparatively, of civil liberty. Our ancestors had, for 
centuries, been accustomed in a great measure to govern 
themselves. They were well acquainted with popular 
elections and legislative assemblies, and the general prin- 
ciples and practice of free governments. They had little 
else to do than to throw off the paramount authority of the 
parent state. Enough was still left, both of law and of or- 
ganization, to conduct society in its accustomed course, and 
to unite men together for a common object. The Greeks, 
of course, could act with little concert at the beginning ; 
they were unaccustomed to the exercise of power, without 
experience, with limited knowledge, without aid, and sur- 
rounded by nations, which, whatever claims the Greeks 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 119 

might seem to have have had upon them, have afforded 
them nothing but discouragement and reproach. They 
have held out, however, for three campaigns ; and that, at 
least, is something. Constantinople and the northern pro- 
vinces have sent forth thousands of troops ; — they have 
been defeated. Tripoli, and Algiers, and Egypt, have 
contributed their marine contingents ; — they have not kept 
the ocean. Hordes of Tartars have crossed the Bospho- 
rus ; — they have died where the Persians died. The pow- 
erful monarchies in the neighborhood have denounced 
their cause, and admonished them to abandon it, and sub- 
mit to their fate. They have answered them, that although 
two hundred thousand of their countrymen have offered up 
their lives, there yet remain lives to offer ; and that it is 
the determination of all, ' yes, of all,' to persevere until 
they have established their liberty, or until the power of 
their oppressors shall have relieved, them from the burden 
of existence. 

It may now be asked, perhaps, whether the expression of 
our own sympathy, and that of the country, may do them 
good ? I hope it may. It may give them courage and spi- 
rit, it may assure them of public regard, teach them that 
they are not wholly forgotten by the civilized world, and in- 
spire them with constancy in the pursuit of their great end. 
At any rate. Sir, it appears to me, that the measure which 
I have proposed is due to our own character, and called for 
by our own duty. When we shall have discharged that 
duty, we may leave the rest to the disposition of Provi- 
dence. 

I close, then, Sir, with repeating, that the object of this 
resolution is to avail ourselves of the interesting occasion 
of the Greek revolution, to make our protest against the 
doctrines of the allied powers ; both as they are laid down 
in principle, and as they are applied in practice. 

1 think it right too, Sir, not to be too unseasonable in the 
expression of our regard, and as far as that goes, in a min- 
istration of our consolation, to a long oppressed and now 
struggling people. I am not of those who would, in the 
hour of utmost peril, withhold such encouragement as 
might be properly and lawfully given, and when the crisis 
should be past, overwhelm the rescued sufferer with kind- 
ness and caresses. The Greeks address the civilized 



120 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

world with a pathos, not easy to be resisted. They invoke 
our favor by more moving considerationsthan can well be- 
long to the condition of any other people, They stretch 
out their arms to the Christian communities of the earth, 
beseeching them, by a generous recollection of their an- 
cestors, by the consideration of their own desolated and 
ruined cities and villages by their wives and children, sold 
into an accursed slavery, by their own blood, which they 
seem willing to pour out like water, by the common faith, 
and in the Name which unites all Christians, that they 
would extend to them, at least some token of compassion- 
ate regard. 



EXTRACT FROM A REVIEW OF SCOTt's LIFE OF NAPOLEON 
BUONAPARTE. CHANNING. 

The cause of liberty in continental Europe cannot iiow 
be forwarded by the action of men in masses. But in ev- 
ery country there are those who feel their degradation and 
their wrongs, who abhor tyranny as the chief obstruction 
of the progress of nations, and who are willing and pre- 
pared to suffer for liberty. Let such men spread around 
them their own spirit by every channel, which a jealous 
despotism has not closed. Let them give utterance to sen- 
timents of magnanimity in private conference, and still 
more by the press ; for there are modes of clothing and 
expressing kindling truths, which, it is presumed, no cen- 
sorship would dare to proscribe. Let them especially 
teach the great truth, which is the seminal principle of a 
virtuous freedom, and the very foundation of morals and 
religion ; we mean, the doctrine, that conscience, the 
voice of God in every heart, is to be listened to above all 
other guides and lords ; that there is a sovereign within 
us clothed with more awful powers and rights than any 
outward king ; and that he alone is worthy the name of 
man, who gives himself up solemnly, deliberately, to obey 
this internal guide through peril and in death. This is the 
spirit of freedom, for no man is wholly and immutably 
free but he who has broken every outward yoke, that he 
may obey his own deliberate conscience. This is the les- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 121 

son to be taught alike in republics and despotisms. As 
yet it has but dawned on the world. Its full application 
remains to be developed. They who have been baptized, 
by a true experience, into the vital and all comprehending 
truth, must every where be its propagators, and he who 
makes one convert to it near a despot's throne, has broken 
one link of that despot's chain. It is chiefly in the diffusion 
of this loftiness of moral sentiment, that we place our hope 
of freedom ; and we have a hope, because we know that 
there are those who have drunk into this truth, and are 
ready, when God calls, to be its martyrs. We do not de- 
spair, for there is a contagion, we would rather say, a di- 
vine power in sublime and moral principle. This is our 
chief trust. — We have less and less hope from force and 
bloodshed, as the instruments of working out man's re- 
demption from slavery. History shows us not a few prin- 
ces who hav€ strengthened thrones by assassination 
or war. But freedom, which is another name for justice, 
honor, and benevolence, scorns to use the private dagger, 
and wields with trembling the sword. The true conspira- 
cy, before which tyranny is to fall, is that of virtuous, ele- 
vated minds, which shall consecrate themselves to the 
work of awakening in men a consciousness of the rights, 
powers, purposes, and greatness of human nature ; which 
shall oppose to force the heroism of intellect and con- 
science, and the spirit of self sacrifice. We believe that, 
at this moment, there are virtue and wisdom enough 
to shake despotic thrones, were they confiding, as they 
should be, in God and in their own might, and were they to 
pour themselves through every channel into the public 
mind. 

We commend to the protection of Almighty God the 
cause of human freedom and improvement. We adore the 
wisdom and goodness of his providence, which has ordain- 
ed, that liberty shall be wrought out by the magnanimity, 
courage, and sacrifices of men. We bless him for the glo- 
rious efforts which this cause has already called forth ; for 
the intrepid defenders who have gathered round it, and 
whose fame is a most precious legacy of past ages ; for 
the toils and sufferings by which it has been upheld ; for 
the awakening and thrilling voice which comes to us from 
the dungeon and scaffold, where the martyrs of liberty 
11 



122 THE ]SEW St>EAKER. 

have pined or bled. We bless him, that even tyranny has 
been overruled for good by exciting a resistance, which 
has revealed to us the strength of virtuous principle in the 
human soul. We beseech this Great and Good Parent, 
from whom all pure influences proceed, to enkindle, by his 
quickening breath, an unquenchable love of virtue and 
freedom in those favored men, whom he hath enriched and 
signalized by eminent gifts and powers, that they may fulfil 
the high function of inspiring their fellow beings with a con- 
sciousness of the birthright and destination of human na- 
ture. Wearied with violence and blood, we beseech him to 
subvert oppressive governments, by the gentle yet awful 
power of truth and virtue, by the teachings of uncorrupt 
Christianity ; by the sovereignty of enlightened opinion ; 
by the triumph of sentiments of magnanimity ; by mild, ra- 
tional and purifying influences, which will raise the spirit of 
the enslaved, and which sovereigns will be unable to with- 
stand. For this peaceful revolution we earnestly pray. "If, 
however, after long bearing, forbearing, and unavailing ap- 
plications to justice and humanity, the friends of freedom 
should be summoned, by the voice of God within, and by 
his providence abroad, to vindicate their rights with other 
arms, to do a sterner work, to repel despotic force by force, 
may they not forget, even in this hour of provocation, the 
spirit which their high calling demands, let them take the 
sword with awe, as those on whom a holy function is de- 
^^olved. Let them regard themselves as ministers and 
delegates of Him, whose dearest attribute is Mercy. Let 
them not stain their sacred cause by one cruel deed, by 
the infliction of one needless pang, by shedding without 
cause one drop of human blood. 



EXTRACT FROM MR! CANNING ON the LATE PORTUGUESE EX- 
PEDITION. 

Sir, I set out with saying that there were reasons which 
entirely satisfied my judgement that nothing short of a point 
of national faith, or national honor, would justify, at the pres- 
ent moment, any voluntary approximation to the possibility 
of a war. Let me be understood, however, distinctly, as 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 123 

not meaning to say that I dread war in a good cause, (and 
in no other may it be the lot of this country ever to engage !) 
from a distrust of the strength of the country to commence, 
or of her resources to maintain it. I dread it, indeed — 
but upon far other grounds : I dread it from an apprehen- 
sion of the tremendous consequences which might arise 
from any hostilities in which we might now be engaged. 
Some years ago, in the discussion of the negotiation res- 
pecting the French war against Spain, I took the liberty 
of adverting to this topic. I then stated that the position 
of this country, in the present state of the world, was one 
of neutrality, not only between contending nations, but be- 
tween conflicting principles ; and that it was by neutral- 
ity alone that we could maintain that balance, the preser- 
vation of which, I believe to be essential to the welfare of 
mankind. I then said, that I feared the next war which 
should be kindled in Europe, would be a war, not so much 
of armies, as of opinions. Not four years have elapsed, 
and behold my apprehensions realized ! 

It is, to be sure, within narrow limits that this war of 
opinion is at present confined : but it is a war of opinion that 
Spain, whether as government or as nation, is now v/aging 
against Portugal : it is a war which has commenced in ha- 
tred of the new institutions of Portugal. How long is it 
reasonable to expect that Portugal will abstain from retal- 
iation ? If into that war this country shall be compelled to 
enter, we shall enter into it with a sincere and anxious desire 
to mitigate rather than exasperate — and to mingle only in the 
conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions!^ 
But I much fear that this country, however earnestly she 
might wish to avoid it, could not, in such case, avoid seeing 
ranked under her banners, all the restless and dissatisfied of 
any nation with which she might come in conflict. It is the 
contemplation of this new poiver in any future war, which 
excites my most anxious apprehension. It is one thing to 
have a giant's strength, but it would be another to use it 
like a giant. The consciousness of such strength is, un- 
doubtedly, a source of confidence and security : but in the 
situation in which this country stands, our business is not 
to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to content our- 
selves with letting the professors of violent and exaggerat- 
ed doctrines on both sides feel, that it is not their interest to 



124 THE NEW SPEAKER 

convert an umpire into an adversary. The situation of 
England, amidst the struggle of political opinions, which 
agitates, more or less sensibly, different countries of the 
world, may be compared to that of the Ruler afthe winds, 
as described by the poet : — 

— ' Celsi sedet JEolus arce, 
Sceptra tenens ; mollitque aniraos, et tempei at iras ; 
Ni faciat, maria ac terras, ccelumque profundum, 
Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras/ 

High on his lofty throne ^olus stands, 
And grasps his sceptre, and the winds commands, 
Lest uncontrolled, earth, sea, and highest heaven 
In awful conflict through the sky be driven. 

The consequence of letting loose the passions, at pres- 
ent chained and confined, would be to produce a scene of 
desolation which no man can contemplate without horror ; 
and I should not sleep easy on my couch, if I were con- 
scious that I had contributed to precipitate it by a single 
moment. This, then, is the reason — a reason very differ- 
ent from fear — the reverse of consciousness of disability — 
why I dread the recurrence of hostilities in any part of 
Europe ; why I would bear much, and would forbear long; 
why I would, as I have said, put up with almost any thing 
that did not touch national faith and national honor ; 
rather than let slip the furies of war, the leash of which 
we hold in our hands, not knowing whom they may reach, 
or how far their ravages may be carried. Such is the love of 
peace which the British government acknowledges ; and 
such the necessity for peace which the circumstances of 
the world inculcate. I will push these topics no farther, I 
return in <:onclusion, to the object of the address. ^Let 
us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked ; be- 
cause it is our duty to do so : and let us cease our interfe- 
rence where that duty ends. We go to Portugal, not to 
rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions, but to 
defend and preserve the independence of an ally. We 
go to plant the standard of England on the well-known 
heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, for- 
eign dominion shall not come. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 125 

EXTRACT FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW ON TfliJ PRESENT 
ADMINISTRATION. 1828-. 

The state of England, at the present moment, bears a 
close resemblance to that of France at the time when 
Turgot was called to the head of affairs. Abuses were 
numerous ; public burdens heavy ; a spirit of innovation 
was abroad among the people. The philosophical minister 
attempted to secure the ancient institutions, by amending 
them. The mild reforms which he projected, had they 
been carried into execution, would have conciliated the 
people, and saved from the most tremendous of all com- 
motions, the church, the aristocracy, and the throne. But 
a crowd of narrow-minded nobles, ignorant of their own 
interest, though solicitous for nothing else, the Newcastles 
and the Salisburys o'f France, began to tremble for their 
oppressive franchises. Their clamors overpowered the 
mild, good sense of a king who wanted only firmness to 
be the best of sovereigns. The minister was discarded 
for counsellors more obsequious to the privileged orders 5 
and the aristocracy and the clergy exulted in their success. 

Then came a new period of profusion and misrule. And 
then, swiftly, like an armed man came poverty and dismay. 
The acclamations of the nobles and the Te Deums of the 
church grew fainter and fainter. The very courtiers mut- 
tered disapprobation. The ministers stammered out fee- 
ble and inconsistent counsels. But all voices were sooa 
drowned in one, which every moment waxed louder and 
more terrible — in the fierce and tumultuous roar of a great 
people, conscious of irresistible strength, maddened by in- 
tolerable wrongs, and sick of deferred hopes ! That cry, 
so long stifled, now rose from every corner of France, 
made itself heard in the presence-chamber of her king, in 
the saloons of her nobles, and in the refectories of her lux* 
urious priesthood. Then, at length, concessions were 
made which the subjects of Louis the Fourteenth would 
have thought it impious even to desire, — which the most 
factious opponent of Louis the Fifleenth had never ven- 
tured to ask, — which, but a few years before, would have 
been received with ecstasies of gratitude. But it was too 
late. 

11* ' 



126 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Abuses were swept away with unsparing severity, Th^ 
royal prerogatives, the feudal privileges, the provincial 
distinctions, were sacrificed to the passions of the people. 
Everything was given ; and everything was given in vain. 

Distrust and hated were not to be thus eradicated from 
the minds of men, who thought that they were not receiv- 
ing favors but extorting rights ; and that, if they deserved 
blame, it was not for their insensibility to tardy benefits, 
but for their forgetfulness of past oppression. 

What followed was the necessary consequence of such 
a state of things. The recollection of old grievances 
made the people suspicious and cruel. The fear of popu- 
lar outrages produced emigrations, intrigues with foreign 
courts ; and, finally, a general war. The whole property 
of the nation changed hands. Its best and wisest citizens 
were banished or murdered. Dungeons were emptied by 
assassins as fast as they were filled by spies. Provinces 
were made desolate. Towns were unpeopled. ' Old 
things passed away. All things became new.' 

The paroxysm terminated. A singular train of events 
restored the house of Bourbon to the French throne. The 
exiles have returned. But they have returned as the few 
survivors of the deluge returned to a world in which they 
could recognise nothing ; in which the valleys had been 
raised, and the mountains depressed, and the course of the 
rivers changed, in which sand and sea-weed had covered 
the cultivated fields and the walls of imperial cities. They 
have returned to seek in vain, amidst the mouldering relics 
of a former system, and the fermenting elements of a new 
creation, the traces of any remembered object. The old 
boundaries are obliterated. The old laws are forgotten. 
The old titles have become laughing-stocks. The proud 
and voluptuous prelates who feasted on silver, and dozed 
amidst curtains of massy velvet, have been replaced by 
curates who undergo every drudgery and every humiliation 
for the wages of lackeys. To those gay and elegant no- 
bles, who studied military science as a fashionable accom- 
plishment, and expected military rank as a part of their 
birthright, have succeeded men born in lofts and cellars ; 
educated in the half-naked ranks of the revolutionary ar- 
mies, and raised by ferocious valor and self-taught skill, 
to dignities with which the coarseness of their manners 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 12t 

and language forms a grotesque contrast. The govern- 
ment may amuse itself by playing at despotism^ by reviv- 
ing the names and aping the style of the old court — as 
Helenus in Epirus consoled himself for the lost magnifi- 
cence of Troy, by calling his brook Xanthus^ and the en- 
trance of his little capital the Scfean gate. But the law 
of entail is gone, and cannot be restored. The liberty of 
the press is established, and the feeble struggles of the 
minister cannot permanently put it down. The Bastile is 
fallen, and can never more rise from its ruins. A few 
words, a fev/ ceremonies, a few rhetorical topics, make up 
all that remains of that system which was founded so 
deeply by the policy of the house of Valois, and adorned 
so splendidly by the pride of Louis the Great. 

Is this a romance ? Or is it a faithful picture of what 
has lately been in a neighbouring land — of what may 
shortly be within the borders of our own ? Has the warn- 
ing been given in vain .'' Have our Mannerses and Clin- 
tons so soon forgotten the fate of houses as wealthy and as 
noble as their own ? Have they forgotten how the tender 
and dehcate woman, — the woman who would not set her 
foot on the earth for tenderness and delicateness, the idol 
of gilded drawing-rooms, the pole-star of crowded theatres, 
the arbitress of fashion, the standard of beauty, the pat- 
roness of genius, — was compelled to exchange her luxu- 
rious and dignified ease for labor and dependence, — the 
sighs of dukes and the flattery of bowing abbes for the in- 
sults of rude pupils and exacting mothers ; perhaps, even 
to draw an infamous and miserable subsistence from those 
charms which had been the glory of royal circles, — to sell 
for a morsel of bread her reluctant caresses and her hag- 
gai-d smiles — to be turned over from a garret to a hospital, 
and from a hospital to a parish vault ? Have they forgot- . 
ten how the gallant and luxurious nobleman, sprung from 
illustrious ancesrLors, marked out from his cradle for the 
highest honors of the state and of the army, impatient of 
control, exquisitely sensible of the slightest aftront, with 
all his high spirit, his polished nianners, his voluptuous 
habits, was reduced to request, with tears in his eyes, 
credit for half-a-crown, — to pass day after day in hearing the 
auxiliary verbs misrecited, or the first page of Telemaque 
misconstrued, by petulant boys, who infested him with 



128 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

nicknames and caricatures, who mimicked his foreign ac- 
cent, and laughed at his thread-bare coat ? Have they 
forgotten all this ? God grant that they may never re- 
member it with unavailing self-accusation, when desolation 
shall have visited wealthier cities and fairer gardens ; — 
when Manchester shall be as Lyons, and Stowe as Chan- 
tilly ; — when he who now, in the pride of rank and opu- 
lence, sneers at what is written in the bitter sincerity of 
our hearts, shall be thankful for % porringer of broth at 
the door of some Spanish convent, or shall implore some 
Italian money-lender to advance another pistole on his 
George ! 



CONCLUSION OF MR, 

JAMES PRESCOTT, BEFORE THE SENATE OF MASSACHU- 



SETTS. 1821. 



Mr. President — The case is closed. The fate of the 
respondent is in your hands. It is for you now to say 
whether, from the law and the facts as they have appeared 
before you, you will proceed to disgrace and disfran*hise 
him. If your duty calls on you to convict him, convict 
him, and let justice be done ! But I adjure you, let it be 
a clear, undoubted case. Let it be so for his sake ; for 
you are robbing him of that, for which, with all your high 
powers, you can yield him no compensation ; let it be so 
for your own sakes, for the responsibility of this day's 
judgment is one, which you must carry with you through 
your lives. For myself, I am willing here to relinquish 
the character of an advocate, and to express opinions by 
which I am wilHng to be bound as a citizen of the com- 
munity. And I say upon my honor and conscience, that 
I see not how, with the law and constitution for your 
guides, you can pronounce the respondent guilty. I de- 
clare, that I have seen no case of wilful and corrupt offi- 
cial misconduct, set forth according to the requisition of 
the constitution and proved according to the common rules 
of evidence. I see many things imprudent and ill-judged ; 
many things that I could wish had been otherwise : but 
corruption and crime I do not see. Sir, the prejudices of 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 129 

fhe day will soon be forgotten : the passions, if any there 
be, which have excited or favored this prosecution, will 
subside ; but the consequence of the judgment you are 
about to render will outlive both them and you. The re- 
spondent is now brought, a single unprotected individual, 
to this formidable bar of judgment, to stand against the 
power and authority of the state. I know you can crush 
him as he stands before you, and clothed as you are with 
the sovereignty of the state. You have the power ^ to 
change his countenance and send him away.' Nor need 
I remind you that your judgment is to be rejudged by the 
community ; and as you have summoned him for trial to 
this high tribunal, you are soon to descend yourselves 
from these seats of justice, and stand before the tribunal of 
the world. I would not fail so much in respect to this 
honorable court, as to hint that it could pronounce a sen- 
tence, which the community will reverse. No, Sir, it is 
not the world's revision, which I would call on you to re- 
gard ; but that of your own consciences when years harve 
gone by, and you shall look back on the sentence you are 
about to render. If you send away the respondent, con- 
demned and sentenced, from your bar, you are yet to meet 
him in the world, on which you cast him out. You will 
be called to behold him a disgrace to his family, a sorrow 
and a shame to his children, a living fountain of grief and 
agony to himself. 

If you shall then be able to behold him only as an un- 
just judge, whom vengeance has overtaken, and justice 
blasted, you will be able to look upon him, not without 
pity, but yet without remorse. But if, on the other hand, 
you shall see whenever and wherever you meet him, a 
victim of prejudice or of passion, a sacrifice to a transient 
excitement ; if you shall see in him, a man, for whose 
condemnation any provision of the constitution has been 
violated, or any principle of law broken down ] then will 
he be able — humble and low as may be his condition — 
then will he be able to turn the current of compassion 
backward, and to look with pity on those who have been 
his judges. If you are about to visit this respondent with 
a judgment which shall blast his house ; if the bosoms of 
the innocent and the amiable are to be made to bleed, un- 
der your infliction, I beseech you to be able to state clear 



130 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

and strong grounds, for your proceedings. Prejudice and 
excitement are transitory, and will pass away.. Political 
expediency, in matters of judicature, is a false and hollow 
principle ; and will never satisfy the conscience of him 
who is fearful that he may have given a hasty judgment. 
I earnestly entreat you, for your own sakes, to possess 
yourselves of solid reasons, founded in truth and justice, 
for the judgment you pronounce, which you can carry 
with you, till you go down into your graves ; reasons 
which it will require no argument to revive, no sophistry, 
no excitement, no regard to popular favor, to render satis- 
factory to your consciences ; reasons which you can ap- 
peal to, in every crisis of your lives, and which shall be 
able to assure you, in your own great extremity, that you 
have not judged a fellow creature without mercy. 

Sir, I have done with the .case of this individual, and 
now leave him in your hands. But I wc«ald once more 
appeal to you as public men ; as statesmen ; as men of 
enlightened minds, capable of a large view of things, and 
of foreseeing the remote consequences of important trans- 
actions ; and, as such, T would most earnestly implore you 
to consider fully the judgment you may pronounce. You 
are to give a construction to constitutional provisions, 
which may adhere to that instrument for ages, either for 
good or evil. I may perhaps overrate the importance of 
this occasion to the public welfare ; but I confess it does 
appear to me that if this body give its sanction to some of 
the principles which have been advanced on this occasion, 
then there is a power in this state above the constitution 
and the law ; a power essentially arbitrary and concentrat- 
ed, the exercise of which may be most dangerous. If 
impeachment be not under the rule of the constitution and 
the laws, then may we tremble, not only for those who 
may be impeached, but for all others. If the full benefit 
of every constitutional provision be not extended to the 
respondent, his case becomes the case of all the people of 
the commonwealth. The constitution is their constitution. 
They have made it for their own protection, and for his 
among the rest. They are noJt eager for his conviction. 
They are not thirsting for his blood. If he be condemned, 
without having his offences set forth, in the manner which 
they, by their laws have ordained, then not only is he con 



I 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 131 

demned unjustly, but the rights of the whole people disre- 
garded. For the sake of the people themselves, therefore^ 
I would resist all attempts to convict by straining the laws, 
or getting over their prohibitions. I hold up before him 
the broad shield of the constitution ; if through that he be 
pierced and fall, he will be but one sufferer in a common 
catastrophe. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE PHI 
-BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 1824, ON 

TflE Motives to intellectual exertion in America — 

EVERETT. 

This then is the theatre on which the intellect of Ameri- 
ca is to appear, and such the motives to its exertion ; such 
the mass to be influenced by its energies, such the crowd 
to witness it-s efforts, such the glory to crown its success. 
If I err in this happy vision of my country's fortunes, I 
thank God for an error so animating. If this be false, may 
I never know the truth. Never may you, my friends, be 
under any other feeling, than that a great, a growing, an 
immeasurably expanding country is calling 'upon you for 
your best services. 

Most of us are of that class, who owe whatever of 
knowledge has shone into our minds, to the free and popu- 
lar institutions of our native land. There are few of us, 
who may not be permitted to boast, that we have been 
reared in an honest poverty or a frugal competence, and 
owe every thing to those means of education, which are 
equally open to all. We are summoned to new energy 
and zeal by the high nature of the experiment we are ap- 
pointed in Providence to make, and the grandeur of the 
theatre on which it is to be performed. When the old 
world afforded no longer any hope, it pleased Heaven to 
open this last refuge of humanity. The attempt has be- 
gun, and is going on, far from foreign corruption, on the 
broadest scale and under the most benignant auspices ; 
and it certainly rests with us to solve the groat problem in 
human society — to settle, and that forever, the momentous 
question-— whether mankind can be trusted with a purely 



13^ THE NEW SPEAKER. 

popular system ? One might alnjost think, without extrav* 
agance, that the departed wise and good of all places 
and times, are looking down from their happy seats, to wit- 
ness what shall now be done by us ; that they who lavish- 
ed their treasures and their blood of old, who labored and 
suffered, who spake and wrote, who fought and perished, 
in the one great cause of Freedom and Truth, are now 
hanging from their orbs on high, over the last solemn ex- 
periment of humanity. As I have wandered over the 
spots, once the scene of their labors, and mused among 
the prostrate columns of their senate houses and forums, I 
have seemed almost to have heard a voice from th^j tombs t>f 
departed ages ; from the sepulchres of the nations, which 
died before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure us to be 
faithful to our trust. They implore us by the long trials of 
struggling humanity, by the blessed memory of the depart- 
ed; by the dear faith, which has been plightedby pure hands, 
to the holy cause of truth and man ; by the awful secrets 
of the prison houses, where the sons of freedom have been 
immured ; by the noble heads which have been brought 
to the block ; by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent ruin 
of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light which 
is rising on the world. Greece cries to us, by the convuls- 
ed lips of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes ; and Rome 
pleads with us in the mute persuasion of her mangled 

Yes, my friends, such is the exhortation which calls on 
us to exert our powers, to employ our time, and consecrate 
our labors in the cause of our native land. When we en- 
gage in that solemn study, the history of our race, when 
we survey the progress of man, from his cradle in the east 
to these last limits of his wandering ; when we beheld him 
forever flying westward from civil and religious thraldom, 
bearing his household gods over mountains and seas, 
seeking rest and finding none, but still pursuing the flying 
bow of promise, to the flittering hills which it spans in 
Hesperian climes, we cannot but exclaim with Bishop 
Berkley, the generous prelate of England, who bestowed 
his benefactions, as well as blessings, on our country. 

Westward the star of empire takes its way 5 

The four first acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day j 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 



THE NEW SPEAKER, ISS" 

EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED APRIL 19, 1825, AT 
THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF A MONUMENT TO 
C0M3IE3I0RATE THE BATTLE »F LEXINGTON. EVERETT. 

There is not a people on earth so abject, as to think 
that national courtesy requires them to hush up the tale of 
the glorious exploits of their fathers and countrymen. 
France is at peace with Austria and Prussia ; but she 
does not demolish her beautiful bridges, baptised with the 
names of the battle fields, where Napoleon annihilated their 
armies ; nor tear down the columns, moulten out of the ac- 
cumulated heaps of their captive artillery. England is at 
peace with France and Spain, but does she suppress the 
names of Trafalgar and the Nile ; does she overthrow the 
towers of Blenheim castle, eternal monuments of the disas- 
ters of France ; does she tear down from the rafters of her 
chapels, where they have for ages waved in triumph, con- 
secrated to the God of battles, the banners of Cressy and 
Agincourt ? — JVo ; she is wiser ; wiser, did I say ? she is 
truer, juster to the memory of her fathers and the spirit of 
her children. The national character, in some of its most 
important elements, must be formed, elevated, and 
strengthened from the materials which history presents. 
The great objection which has been urged, at the point 
of the bayonet and at the mouth of the cannon, by the par- 
tisans of arbitrary power in Europe, against revolutionary 
and popular governments, is, that they want a historical 
basis, which alone, they say, can impart stability and le- 
gality to public institutions. But certainly the historical 
basis is of much greater moment to the spirit, than to the 
institutions of a people ; and for the reason, that the spirit 
itself of a nation is far more important than its institutions 
at any moment. Let the spirit be sound and true, and it 
will sooner or later find or make a remedy for defective 
institutions. But though the institutions should surpass, 
in theoretic beauty, the fabled perfection of Utopia or At- 
lantis, without a free spirit, the people will be slaves ; they 
will be slaves of the most despicable kind, — pretended 
freemen. 

And how is the spirit of a people to be formed and ani- 
mated, and cheered, but out of the storehouse of its histo- 
ric recollections ? Are we to be eternally ringing the 
12 



134 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

changes upon Marathon and Thermopylse 5 and going back 
to read in obscure texts of Greek and Latin of the great 
exemplars of patriotic virtue ? thank God, that we can find 
them nearer home, in our own country, on our own soil ;— 
that strains of the noblest sentiment, that ever swelled in 
the breast of man, are breathing to us out of every page of 
our country's history, in the native eloquence of our moth- 
er tongue ; — that the colonial and the prcYincial councils 
of America, exhibit to us models oi the spirit and char- 
acter, which gave Greece and Rome their name and their 
praise among the nations. Here we ought to go for our 
instruction ; — the lesson is plain, it is clear, it is applicable. 
When we go to ancient history, we are bewildered with 
the difference of manners and institutions. We are will- 
ing to pay our tribute of applause to the memory of Leon- 
idas, who fell nobly for hio country, in the face of the 
foe. But when we trace him to his home, we are confound- 
ed at the reflection, that the same Spartan heroism to 
which he sacrificed himself at Thermopylag, would have 
led him to tear his only child, if it happened to be a sickly 
babe — the very object for which all that is kind and good 
in man rises up to plead — from the bosom of its mother, 
and carry it out to be eaten by the wolves of Taygetus. 
We feel a glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at 
Marathon, by the ten thousand champions of invaded 
Greece ; but we cannot forget that the tenth part of the 
number were slaves, unchained from the workshops and 
door-posts of their masters, to go and fight the battles of 
freedom. I do not mean that these examples are to de- 
stroy the interest with which we read the history of an- 
cient times ; they possibly increase that interest, by the 
singular contrast they exhibit. But they do warn Us, if 
we need the warning, to seek our great practical lessons 
of patriotism at home ; out of the exploits and sacrifices, of 
which our own country is the theatre ; out of the charac- 
ters of our own fathers. Them we know, the high-souled, 
natural, unafi?ected, the citizen heroes. We know what 
happy firesides they left for the cheerless camp. We 
know with what pacific habits they dared the perils of the 
field. There is no mystery, no romance, no madness un- 
der the name of chivalry, about them. It is all resolute, 
manly resistance, for conscience and liberty's sake, not 



1 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 135 

merely of an overwhelming power, but of all the force of 
long-rooted habits, and native love of order and peace. 

Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil which we 
tread ; it beats in our veins ; it cries to us not merely in 
the thrilHng words of the first victims in this cause, — ' My 
sons, scorn to be slaves ;' — but it cries with a still more 
moving eloquence — ' My sons, forget not your fathers.' 
Fast, oh, too fast, with all our efforts to prevent it, their 
precious memories are dying away. Notwithstanding our 
numerous written memorials, much of what is known of 
those eventful times dwells but in the recollection of a few 
revered survivors, and with them is rapidly perishing, un- 
recorded and irretrievable. How many prudent counsels, 
conceived in perplexed times ; how many heart-stirring 
words, uttered when liberty was treason ; how many brave 
and heroic deeds, performed when the halter, not the lau- 
rel, was the promised meed of patriotic daring, — are al- 
ready lost and forgotten in the graves of their authors. 
How little do we, — although we have been permitted to 
hold converse with the venerable remnants of that day, — 
how little do we know of their dark and anxious hours ; of 
their secret meditations ; of the momentous struggle. And 
while they are dropping round us like the leaves of autumn, 
while scarce a week passes that does not call away some 
member of the veteran ranks, already so sadly thinned, , 
shall we make no effort to hand down the traditions of 
their day to our children : to pass the torch of liberty, 
which we received in the splendor of its first enkind- 
ling, bright and flaming to those who stand next us in the 
line ; so that when we shall come to be gathered to the 
dust where our fathers are laid, we may say to our sons 
and our grandsons, ' If we did not amass, we have not 
squandered your inheritance of glory .'* ' 



CONTINUATION OF THE PRECEDING ORATION. 

It is a proud anniversary for our neighbourhood. We 
iiave cause for honest complacency, that when the distant 
citizen of our own repubUc, when the stranger from foreign 
lands, inquires for the spots where the noble blood of the 



136 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

revolution began to flow, where the first battle of that great 
and glorious contest was fought, he is guided through the 
villages of Middlesex, to the plains of Lexington and Con- 
cord. It is a commemoration of our soil, to which ages, 
as they pass, will add dignity and interest ; till the names 
of Lexington and Concord, in the annals of freedom, will 
stand by the side of the most honorable names in Roman 
or Grecian story. 

It was on6 of those great days, one of those elemental 
occasions in the world's affairs, when the people rise, and 
act for themselves. Some organization and preparation 
had been made, but, from the nature of the case, with 
scarce any effect on the events of that day. It may be 
doubted, whether there was an efficient order given the 
whole day to any body of men, as large as a regiment. It 
was the people, in their first capacity, as citizens and as 
freemen, starting from their beds at midnight, from their 
firesides, and from their fields, to take their own cause into 
their own hands. Such a spectacle is the height of the 
moral sublime ; when the want of every thing is fully raade 
up by the spirit of the cause ; and the soul within stands 
in the place of discipline, organization, resources. In the 
prodigious efforts of a veteran army, beneath the dazzling 
splendor of their array, there is something revolting to the 
reflective mind. The ranks are filled with the desperate, 
the mercenary, the depraved ; an iron slavery, by the name 
of subordination, merges the free will of one hundred thou- 
sand men, in the unqualified despotism of one ? the hu- 
manity, mercy, and remorse, which scarce ever desert the 
individual bosom, are sounds without a meaning to that 
fearful, ravenous, irrational monster of prey, a mercenary 
army. It is hard to say who are most to be commiserated, 
the wretched people on whom it is let loose, or the still 
more wretched people whose substance has been sucked 
out, to nourish it into strength and fury. But in the efforts 
of the people, of the people struggling for their rights, 
moving not in organized, disciplined masses, but in their 
spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart, — 
though I like not war nor any of its works, — there is some- 
thing glorious. They can then move forward without or- 
ders, act together without combination, and brave the flam- 
ing lines of battle, without entrenchments to cover, or walls^ 
to shield them. No dissolute camp has worn off from, tha 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 137 

feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of that home, 
where his mother and his sisters sit waiting, with tearful 
eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news from the wars ; 
no long service in the ranks of a conqueror has turned the 
veteran's heart into marble ; their valor springs not from 
recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preserva- 
tion of life, knit by no pledges to the life of others. But 
in the strength and spirit of the cause alone they act, they 
contend, they bleed. In this, they conquer. The people 
always conquer. They always must conquer. Armies 
may be defeated ; kings may be overthrown, and new dy- 
nasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant and slavish 
race, that care not in what language the covenant of their 
subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their bar- 
ter and sale is made out. But the people never invade ; 
and when they rise against the invader, are never subdued. 
If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the moun- 
tains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills are their castles ; 
the tangled, pathless thicket their palisado, and nature, — 
God, is their ally. Now he overwhelms the host of their 
enemies beneath his drifting mountains of sand ; now he 
buries them beneath a falling atmosphere of polar snow ; 
he lets loose his tempests on their fleets ; he puts a folly 
into their councils, a madness into the hearts of their lead- 
ers : and never gave and never will give a full and final 
triumph over a virtuous, gallant people, resolved to be free. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORN- 
ER STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MOx\UMExNT, JUNE 17, 
1825.— WEBSTER. 

The great event in the history of the continent, which 
we are now met here to commemorate ; that prodipy of 
modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the 
world, is the American Revolution. In a day of extraor- 
dinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, 
distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this 
place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted 
character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic 
devotion. 

12* 



1^ THE! N£W SPEAKER. 

The society, whose organ I am^^was formed for the pur- 
pose of rearing some honorable and durable monument to 
the memory of the early friends of American Independence. 
They have thought, that for this object no time could be 
more propitious, than the present prosperous and peaceful 
period ; that no place could claim preference over this 
memorable spot ; and that no day could be more auspicious 
to the undertaking, than the anniversary of the battle which 
was here fought. The foundation of that monument we 
have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, 
with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the 
midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. 
We trust it will be prosecuted ; and that springing from a 
broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and una- 
dorned grandeur, it may remain, as long as Heaven per- 
mits the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the events 
in memory of which it is raised, and of the gratitude of 
those who have raised it. • 

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actirwus 
is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of 
mankind. We know, that if we could cause this structure 
to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierc- 
ed them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part of 
that, which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been 
Spread over the earth, and which history charges itself 
with making known to all future times. We know, that no in- 
scription on entablatures less broad than the earth itself, can 
carry information of the events we commemorate, where it 
has not already gone; and that no structure, which shall not 
outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men, 
can prolong the memorial. But cur object is, by this edi- 
fice to show our own deep sense of the value and impor- 
tance of the achievements of our ancestors ; and, by pre- 
senting this work, of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive 
similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the 
• principles of the Revolution. Human beings are compos- 
ed not of reason only, but of imagination also, and senti- 
ment ; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied which is 
appropriated to the purpose of giving right direction to sen- 
timents, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. 
Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate na- 
tional hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 133f 

is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate the work to our 
spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light 
of peace may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of 
our conviction of that unmeasured benefit, which has been 
conferred on our own land, and of the happy influences, 
which have been produced, by the sarne events, on the 
general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to 
mark a spot, which mast forever be dear to us and our 
posterity. We wish, that whosoever, in all coming time, 
shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not 
undistinguished, where the first great battle of the revolu- 
tion was fought. We wish that this structure may pro- 
claim the magnitude and importance of that event, to eve- 
ry class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn 
the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that wea- 
ry and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the 
recollections which it suggests. We wish, that labor may 
look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We 
wish, that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come 
on all nations, must be expected to come on us also, 
desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and 
be assured that the foundations of our national power 
will still stand strong. We wish, that this column, ris- 
ing towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many 
temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, 
in all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. 
We wish, finally, that the last object on the sight of him 
who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his 
who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him 
of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise, till 
it meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the 
morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on it sum- 
mit. 



SECOND EXTRACT — 'ADDRESS TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE 
BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL A?TD OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 

ARMY. WEBSTER. 

t 

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of 
the things which have happened since the day of the battle 
of Bunker Hill, we are but fifty years removed from it ; 



140 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

and we now stand here^ to enjoy all the blessings of our 
own condition, and to look abroad on the brightened pros- 
pects of the world, while we hold still among us some of 
those, who were active agents in the scenes of 1775, and 
who are how here, from every quarter of New England, to 
visit, once more, and under circumstances so affecting, I 
had almost said so overwhelming, this renowned theatre of 
their courage and patriotism. 

Venerable men ! you h^ive come down to uS from a for- 
mer generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out 
your hves, that you might behold this joyousMay . You are 
now, where you stood, fifty years ago, this very hour, with 
your brothers, and your neighbours, shoulder to shoulder, 
in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered ! The 
same heavens are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean 
rolls at your feet ; but all else how changed ! You hear 
now no roar of hostile cannon, yoU see no mixed volumes 
of smoke and flame rising from horning Charlestown. The 
ground strewed with the dead and the dying ; the impetuous 
charge ; the steady and successful repulse j the loud call to 
repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to re- 
peated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly 
bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in 
war and deatJi ; — all these you have witnessed, but you wit- 
ness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder 
metropolis^ its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled 
with wives, and children, and countrymen in distress and 
terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue 
of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of 
its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet 
you with an universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a 
felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this 
mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means 
of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of dis- 
tinction and defence. All is peace ; and God has granted 
you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber 
in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to 
partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and he has al- 
lowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and 
in the name of the present generation, in the name of your 
country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! 

But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us 



THE NEW SPEALER. 141 

to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless 
spirits, who hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated 
spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the pre- 
sence of a most vi^orthy representation of the survivors of 
the whole Revolutionary Army. 

Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well fought 
field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton 
and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and 
Saratoga. Veterans of half a century ! when in your 
youthful days, you put every thing at hazard in your coun- 
try's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth 
is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an 
hour like this ! At a period to which you could not reason- 
ably have expected to arrive ; at a moment of national 
prosperity, such as you could never have foreseen, you are 
now met, here, to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and 
to receive the overflowings of an universal gratitude. 

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts 
inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive 
that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. 
The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the liv- 
ing, throng to your embraces. The scene overwhelms 
you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies 
smile upon your declining years, and bless them ! And 
when you ^hall here have exchanged your embraces ; 
when you shall once more have pressed the hands which 
have been so often extended to give succour in adversity, 
or grasped in the exultation of victory ; then look abroad 
into this lovely land, which your young valor defended, 
and mark the happiness with which it is filled ; yea, look 
abroad into the whole earth, and see what a name you 
have contributed to give to your country, and what a 
praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the 
sympathy and gratitude, which beam upon your last days 
from the improved condition of mankind. 



142 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

THIRD EXTRACT ON THE POWER OF PUBLIC OPINION. 

WEBSTER. 

We may hope, that the growing influence of enlighten- 
ed sentiments will promote the permanent peace of the 
world. Wars, to maintain family alliances, to uphold or 
to cast down dynasties, to regulate successions to thrones, 
which have occupied so much room in the history of mod- 
ern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less 
likely to become general and involve many nations, as the 
great principle shall be more and more established, that 
the interest of the world is peace, and its first great stat- 
ute, that every nation possesses the power of establishing 
a government for itself. But public opinion has attained 
also an influence over governments, which do not admit 
the popular principle into their organization. A necessary 
respect for the judgment of the world operates, in some 
measure, as a control over the most unlimited forms of 
authority. It is owing, perhaps, to this truth, that the in- 
teresting struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go 
on so long, without a direct interference, either to wrest 
that country from its present masters, and add it to other 
powers, or to execute the system of pacification by force, 
aad, with united strength, lay the neck of christian and 
civilized Greece at the foot of the barbarian Turk. Let 
us thank God that we live in an age, when something has 
influence besides the bayonet, and when the sternest 
authority does not venture to encounter the scorching 
power of public reproach. Any attempt of the kind I 
have mentioned, should be met by one universal burst of 
indignation ; the air of the civilized world ought to be 
made too warm to be comfortably breathed by any who 
would hazard it. 

It is, indeed, a touching reflection, that while, in the ful- 
ness of our country's happiness, we rear this monument to 
her honor, we look for instruction, in our undertaking, to 
a country which is now in fearful contest, not for works of 
art or memorials of glory, but for her own existence. Let 
her be assured, that she is not forgotten in the world ; that 
her efforts are applauded, and that constant prayers as- 
cend for her success. And let us cherish a confident hope 
for her final triumph. If the true spark of religious and 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 143 

civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency can- 
not extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire it may be 
smothered for a time ; the ocean may overwhelm it ; 
mountains may press it down ; but its inherent and uncon- 
querable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and 
at some time or another, in some place or another, the vol- 
cano will break out and flame up to heaven. 

And now let us indulge an honest exultation in the con- 
viction of the benefit, which the example of our country 
has produced, and is likely to produce, on human freedom 
and human happiness. And let us endeavour to compre- 
hend, in all its magnitude, and to feel, in all its import- 
ance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of human 
affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of re- 
presentative and popular governments. Thus far our ex- 
ample shows, that such governments are compatible, not 
only with respectability and power, but with repose, with 
peace, with security of personal rights, with good laws, 
and a just administration. 

Let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this 
generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those 
are daily dropping from among us, who established our 
liberty and our government. The great trust now de- 
scends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that 
which is presented to us, as our appropriate object. Wo 
can win no laurels in a war for Independence. Earlier 
and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are 
there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and 
other founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. 
But there remains to us a great duty of defence and pre- 
servation ; and there is open to us also, a noble pursuit, 
to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our 
proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age 
of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the 
arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develope 
the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up 
its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see 
whether we also, in our day and generation, may not per- 
form something worthy to be remembered. Let us culti- 
vate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the 
great objects, which our condition points out to us, let us 
act under a settled conviction, and an habitual feeling, 



144 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

that these twentyfour states are one country. Let our 
conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let 
us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in 
which we are called to act. Let our object be, olr 

COUNTRY, OUR W^HOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR 

COUNTRY. And, by the blessing of God, may that country 
itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of op- 
pression and terror, but of~ wisdom, of peace, and of lib- 
erty, upon which the world may gaze, with admiration, 
forever ! 



DIMINUTION OF THE INDIAN TRIBES.- — STORY. 

There is, indeed, in the fate of these unfortunate be- 
ings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb 
the sobriety of our judgement ; much which may be urged 
to excuse their own atrocities ; much in their characters 
which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What 
can be more melancholy than their history ? By a law of 
their nature, they seem destined to a slow but sure extinc- 
tion. Every where, at the approach of the white man, 
they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, 
like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are 
gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return 
no more. Tv/o centuries ago, the smoke of their wig- 
wams, and the fires of their councils rose in every valley 
from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean 
to the Mississippi and the Lakes. The shouts of victory 
and the war dance rung through the mountains and the 
glades. The thick arrows emd the deadly tomahawk whis- 
tled through the forests ; and the hunter's trace, and the 
dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. 
The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listen- 
ed to the songs of other days. The mothers played with 
their infants, and gazed on the scene with the warm hopes 
of the future. iJie aged sat down, but they wept not. 
They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where the 
great spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, be- 
yond the western skies. Braver men never lived ; truer 
men never drew the bow. They had courage, and forti- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 145 

tude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the 
human race. They shrunk from no dangers, and they 
feared no hardships. 

If they had the vices of savage life, they had the vir- 
tues also. They were true to their country, their friends, 
and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did 
they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, 
their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. 
Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the 
grave. But where are they ? Where are the villages, 
and warriors, and youth ? the sachems and the tribes ? 
the hunters and their families ? They have perished. 
They are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not done 
the mighty work. No, — nor famine, nor war. There has 
been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten 
into their heart-cores — a plague, which the touch of the 
white man communicated — a poison, which betrayed them 
into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a 
single region, which they may now call their own. Already 
the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their 
journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their 
miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and 
the warriors, 'few and faint, yet fearless still.' The ashes 
are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer 
curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a 
slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, 
for terror or despatch, but they heed him not. They turn 
to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast 
a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed 
no tears ; they utter no cries ; they heave no groans. 
There is something in their hearts which passes speech. 
There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or 
submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both ; 
which choaks all utterance ; which has no aim or method. 
It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a 
moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the 
fated stream. It shall never be repassed by them — ^no, 
never. They know and feel that there is for them but one 
remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. — It is to the gen- 
eral burial-ground of their race. 
13 



146 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION DELIVERED AT BOSTON, JULY 
4, 1825.— "THE CHARACTER AND EXTIRPATION OF THE 
INDIANS OF NEW ENGLAND. C. SPRAGUE. 

Roll back the tide of time ; how powerfully to us ap- 
plies the promise : ^ I will give thee the heathen for an 
inheritance.' Not many generations ago, where you now 
sit, circled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized 
life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox 
dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race 
of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your 
heads, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer ; gaz- 
ing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover 
wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigv/am blaze beamed 
on the tender and helpless, the council fire glared on the 
wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in 
your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe 
along your rocky shores. Here they warred ; the echoing 
whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all 
were here ; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled 
the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped ; and 
from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the 
Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on 
tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of 
their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God 
of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledg- 
ed in every thing around. He beheld him in the star that 
sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling ; in the sacred 
orb that flamed on him from his mid-day throne ; in the 
flower that snapped in the morning breeze ; in the lofty 
pine, that defied a thousand whirlwinds ; in the timid war- 
bler that never left its native grove ; in the fearless eagle, 
whose untired pinion was wet in clouds ; in the worm that 
crawled at hi^ foot ; and in his own matchless form, glow- 
ing with a spark of that hght, to whose mysterious source 
he bent, in humble^ though blind adoration. 

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean cfime 
a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The 
former were sown for you ; the latter sprang up in the 
path of the simple native. Two hundred years have 
changed the character of a great continent, and blotted 
forever from its face a whole, peculiar people. Art has 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 147 

usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children 
of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the 
ignorant. Here and there, a stricken few remain, but 
how unlike their bold, untameable progenitors ; The In- 
dian^ of falcon glance, and lion bearing, the theme of the 
touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone ! 
and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil where he 
walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man, 
when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. 

As a race, they have withered from the land. Their 
arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins 
are in the dust. Their council fire has long since gone 
out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying to the 
untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant 
mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They 
are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing 
them away ; they must soon hear the roar of the last 
wave, which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, 
the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing 
city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed re- 
mains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belong- 
ed. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of 
their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude 
virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate 
as a people. 



SECOND EXTRACT INTREPIDITY OF OUR ANCESTORS. 

C. sprague. 

Can we sufficiently admire the firmness of this little 
brotherhood, thus self-banished from their country .? Un- 
kind and cruel, it was true, but still their country 1 There 
they were born, and there, where the lamp of life was 
lighted, they had hoped it would go out. There a father's 
hand had led them, a mother's smile had warmed them. 
There were the haunts of their boyish days, their kins- 
folk, their friends, their recollections, their all. Yet all 
was left : even while their heartstrings bled at the parting, 
all was left ; and a stormy sea, a savage waste, and a 
fearful destiny, were encountered — for Heaven and for 
You. 



Ut THE NEW SPEAKER. 

It is easy enough to praise, when success has sanctified 
the act ; and to fancy that we, too, could endure a heavy 
trial, which is to be followed by a rich reward. But before 
the deed is crowned, while the doers are yet about us, 
bearing like ourselves the common infirmities of the flesh, 
we stand aloof, and are not always ready to discern the 
spirit that sustains and exalts them. When centuries of 
experience have rolled away, we laud the exploit on which 
we might have frowned, if we had lived with those, who 
left their age behind them to achieve it. We read of em- 
pires founded, and people redeemed, of actions embalmed 
by time, and hallowed by romance ; and our hearts leap 
at the lofty recital ; we feel it would be a glorious thing to 
snatch the laurels of immortal fame. But it is in the day 
of doubt, when the result is hidden in clouds, when dan- 
ger stands in every path, and death is lurking in every 
corner ; it is then, that the men, who arc born for great 
occasions, start boldly from the world's trembling multitude, 
and swear to ^ do, or die ! ' 

Such men were they who peopled, such men, too, were 
they who preserved^ these shores. Of these latter giant 
spirits, who battled for independence, we are to remember, 
that destruction awaited defeat. They were ' rebels,' ob- 
noxious to the fate of * rebels.' They were tearing asun- 
der the ties of loyalty, and hazarding all the sweet en- 
dearments of social and domestic life. They were un- 
friended, weak, and wanting. Going thus forth, against a 
powerful and vindictive foe, what could they dare to hope ? 
what had they not to dread ? They could not tell, but that 
vengeance would hunt them down, and infamy hang its 
black scutcheon over their graves. They did not know 
that the angel of the Lord would go forth with them, and 
smite the invaders of their sanctuary. They did not 
know, that generation after generation would, on this day, 
rise up and call them blessed ; that the sleeping quarry 
would leap forth to pay them voiceless homage ; that their 
names would be handed down, from father to son, the pen- 
man's theme and the poet's inspiration ; challenging, 
through countless years, the jubilant praises of an eman- 
cipated people, and the plaudits of an admiring world ! 
No ! They knew only, that the arm, which should pro- 
tect, was oppressing them, and they shook it off ; that the 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 149 

chalice presented to their lips was a poisoned one, and 
they dashed it away. They knew, only, that a rod was 
stretched over them for their audacity ; and beneath this 
they vowed never to bend, while a single pulse could beat 
the larum to 'rebellion.' That rod must be broken, or 
they must bleed ! And it was broken ! Led on by their 
Washington, the heroes went forth. Clothed in the pano- 
ply of a righteous cause, they went forth boldly. Guarded 
by a good Providence, they went forth triumphantly. They 
labored, that we might find rest : they fought, that we 
might enjoy peace ; they conquered, that we might inherit 
freedom ! 

The achievement of American Independence was not 
merely the separation of a few obscure colonies from their 
parent realm ; it was the practical annunciation to created 
man, that he was created free ! and it will stand in histo- 
ry, the epoch from which to compute the real duration of 
political liberty. Intolerance and tyranny had for ages 
leagued to keep their victim down. While the former 
could remain the pious guardian of his conscience, tlie lat- 
ter knew it had nothing to fear from his courage. He was 
their's, soul and body. His intellectual energies were 
paralyzed, that he mig-ht not behold the corruptions of the 
church, and his physical powers were fettered, that he 
could not rise up against the abuses of the state. Thus 
centuries of darkness rolled away. Light broke, from 
time to time, but it only served to show the surrounding 
clouds ; bright stars, here and there, looked out, but they 
were the stars of a gloomy night. At length the morning 
dawned, when one generation of your ancestors willed 
that none but their Maker should guide them in their duty 
as Christians ; and the perfect day shone forth, when an- 
other declared that from none but their Maker would they 
derive their immunities as men. The world had seen the 
former secure a privilege, whose original denial would 
have left their faith asleep in its founder's sepulchre ; and 
they beheld the latter in the enjoyment of rights, without 
which their freedom would have been palsied at the foot- 
stool of the monarch's throne. 
13=^ 



150 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

THIRD EXTRACT DEVOTION OF LAFAYETTE TO THE GAUSEl 

OF AMERICA. SFRAGUE. 

While we bring our offerings for the mighty of our own 
landj shall we not remember the chivalrous spirits of other 
shores, who shared with them the hour of weakness and 
wo ? Pile to the clouds the majestic columns of glory, 
let the lips of those who can speak well, hallow each spot 
where the bones of your bold repose ; but forget not those 
who with your bold went out to battle. 

Among these men of noble daring, there was One, a 
young and gallant stranger, who left the blushing vine-hills 
of his delightful France. The people whom he came to 
succor, were not his people ; he knew them only in the 
wicked story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary 
wretch, striving for the spoil of the vanquished ; the pal- 
ace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valley yielded 
him its increase. He was no nameless man, staking life 
for reputation ; he ranked among nobles, and looked un^ 
awed upon kings. He was no friendless outcast, seeking 
for a grave to hide his cold heart 5 he was girdled by the 
companions of his childhood, his kinsmen were about him, 
his wife was before him. 

Yet from all these he turned away, and came. Like a 
lofty tree, that shakes down its green glories, to battle 
with the winter storm, he flung aside the trappings of place 
and pride, to crusade for freedom, in freedom's holy land. 
He came — but not in the day of successful rebellion, not 
when the new-risen sun of independence had burst the 
cloud of time, and careered to its place in the heavens. 
He came when darkness curtained the hills, and the tem- 
pest was abroad in its anger ; when the plough stood still 
in the field of promise, and briers cumbered the garden of 
beauty ; when fathers were dying, and mothers were weep- 
ing over them ; when the wife was binding up the gashed 
bosom of her husband, and the maiden was wiping away the 
death-damp from the brow of her lover. He came when 
the brave began to fear the power of man, and the pious to 
doubt the favor of God. 

It was then, that this One joined the ranks of a revolted 
people. Freedom's little phalanx bade him a grateful wel- 
come. With them he courted the battle's rage, with their's 



THE NEW SPEAKER. l6l 

his arm was lifted ; with their's his blood was shed. Long 
and doubtful was the conflict. At length kind Heaven 
smiled on the good cause, and the beaten invaders fled. 
The profane were driven from the temple of liberty, and 
at her pure shrine the pilgrim warrior, with his adored 
Commander, knelt and worshipped. Leaving there his 
offering, the incense of an uncorrupted spirit, he at length 
rose up, and crowned with benedictions, turned his happy 
feet towards his long deserted home. 

After nearly fifty years, that One has come again. Can 
mortal tongue tell, can mortal heart feel, the sublimity of 
that coming ? Exulting millions rejoice in it, and their loud, 
long, transporting shout, like the mingling of many winds, 
rolls on, undying, to freedom's farthest mountains. A 
congregated nation comes round him. Old men bless him, 
and children reverence him. The lovely come out to look 
upon him, the learned deck their halls to greet him, the 
rulers of the land rise up to do him homage. How his full 
heart labors ! He views the rusting trophies of departed 
days, he treads the high places where his brethren moul- 
der, he bends before the tomb of his ' Father : ' — his 
words are tears : the speech of sad remembrance. But 
he looks round upon the ransomed land, and a joyous race; 
he beholds the blessings those trophies secured, for which 
those brethren died, for which that ^ Father ' lived ; and 
again his words are tears ; the eloquence of gratitude and 

joy- 
Spread forth creation like a map ; bid earth's dead mul- 
titude revive ; — and of all the pageant splendors that ever 
glittered to the sun, when looked his burning eye on a sight 
like this ? Of all the myriads that have come and gone, 
what cherished minion ever ruled an hour like this .'' Many 
have struck the redeeming blow for their own freedom, 
but who, like this man, has bared his bosom in the cause 
of strangers .? Others have lived in the love of their own 
people, but who like this man, has drank his sweetest cup 
of welcome with another ? Matchless chief I of glory's 
immortal tablets, there is one for him, for him alone ! Ob- 
livion shall never shroud i*s splendor ; the everlasting 
flame of liberty shall guard it, that the generations of men 
may repeat the name recorded there, the beloved name of 
Lafayette ! 



152 THE NEW SPEAKM. 

CONCLUSION OF AN ADDRESS TO THE MASSACHUSETTS PEACE 
SOCIETY. 1824. J. WARE. 

On the day of this religious festival,* appropriated with 
such happy Consistency to the annual celebration of this 
society, we are reminded with more than common force of 
the lessons which Christianity teaches upon the subject we 
have been considering. The same command which for- 
bids man to seek in anger or in malice the life of his fel- 
low man, forbids also, that nation should rise up against 
nation in civil contest. It is in vain that we endeavor to 
draw the line, between the acts of nations and the acts of 
individuals. This is a refinement which just reasoning does 
not admit. War is the offspring of the same propensities 
that in private life lead on to violence, rapine, and murder. 
It engenders the same bad passions, which, if indulged in 
the daily intercourse of mankind, would stamp one as 
a ferocious ruffian. And what is there in the nature, the 
causes, or the objects of war which should give to actions 
a different character. The cause of a people is not in it- 
self more sacred than the cause of an individual. Person- 
al rights are as dear, and as dearly to be defended as na- 
tional. And is not national crime as much to be deprecat- 
ed — national virtue as strongly to be desired ? 

The intercourse of nations has too often exhibited a 
mournful spectacle to the eyes of the philanthropist and the 
Christian. Those principles which even among the most 
lawless of mankind it has been held dishonorable to violate 
in the private relations of life, have been trampled upon 
without hesitation or shame. The very men who would be 
indignant in their personal concerns, at the bare suspicion 
of treachery or duplicity — who would shudder at the 
thought of shedding human blood with their own hand — 
have been content, as ministers and monarchs, coolly and 
deliberately, to build up a monument of glory, out of the 
ruins of broken treaties, violated faith, and perjured vows, 
cemented with the blood of thousands. 

But Christianity acknowledges no such partial distinc- 
tions. Its empire was intended to be, and it will be uni-. 
vers^l. Nations as well as men, rpust at last submit to its 

* Christmas. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 153 

benignant influence. The feeble-minded are sometimes in- 
clined to despair, because it has existed so long, and so 
much yet remains undone — because men are still vicious, 
and criminal, and violent — and nations are still contentious 
and hostile. Let them reject a view so unjust and unwor- 
thy. — Let them reflect, not upon what Christianity has not 
done, but upon what it has ! It has almost given to the 
world the proudest virtues of our race — philanthropy and 
benevolence. It has almost created domestic life — for, 
where upon the face of the earth, in ancient or in modern 
times, in the dwellings of civilized or of savage man, do 
we find the virtues of the parent, the child, the sister, and 
the brother gathering as they do around the fireside of the 
Christian ! What has Christianity done for mankind !— 
What, I might almost ask, has it not done ? Has it not civ- 
ilized the savage— comforted the poor — bound up the 
broken hearted — softened human misery — elevated human 
virtue. Is it not now striking from the limbs of the op- 
pressed African the fetters of his ignominious bondage ? 
And shall we despair of its final triumph over all hu- 
man guilt and wretchedness ^ It cannot be. The day 
will come, though our eyes see it not, and our ears hear 
not of it, when its influence shall have become as exten- 
sive as the world — when its triumph shall be complete — 
when it shall succeed in establishing that which it was its 
principal object to inculcate — ^ peace on earth and good 
will towards men.' 



EXTRACT PROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE MAS- 
SACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF INTEMPE- 
RANCE. SPRAGUE. 

Man has been truly termed the creature of imitation, 
and it is equally true, that his disposition to imitate is 
somewhat aspiring. He will ape a lofty vice, rather than 
emulate a lowly virtue. This inclination, strong enough, 
every where, is peculiarly powerful in a country, the very 
institutions of which serve to feed it. The pleasant doc- 
rine that all men are free and equal, is thoroughly under- 
stood, at least, in one sense, by those whom its exciting 
spirit never roused to great and noble action. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



In this view our subject assumes a fearful political im- 
[|>ortance. The ruinous consequences of wide-spread in- 
temperance to a people governing themselves, can hardly 
!;be overrated. If there be on earth one nation more than 
another^ whose institutions must draw their life-blood from 
j^he individual purity of its citizens, that nation is our own- 
JRulers by divine right, and nobles by hereditary succes- 
sion, may, perhaps, tolerate with impunity those depraving 
indulgences which keep the great mass abject. Where 
the many enjoy little or no power, it were a trick of policy 
to wink at those enervating vices, which would rob them 
!of both the ability and the inclination to enjoy it. But in 
our country, where almost every man, however humble, 
bears to the omnipotent ballot-box his full portion of the 
sovereignty — where at regular periods the ministers of au- 
thority, who went forth to rulo, return to be ruled, and lay 

(down their dignities at the feet of the monarch multitude ; 
J — where, in short, public sentiment is the absolute lever 
that moves the political world, the purity of the people is 
•the rock of political safety. We may boast, if we please, 
of our exalted privileges, and fondly imagine that they will 
be eternal — but whenever those vices shall abound, which 
.undeniably tend to debasement, steeping the poor and the 
:ignorant still lower in poverty and ignorance, and thereby 
^destroying that wholesome mental equality, which can 
'jalone sustain a self-ruled people — it will be found by wo- 
ful experience, that our happy system of government, the 
best ever devised for the intelligent and good, is the very 
worst to be entrusted to the degraded and vicious. The 
great majority will then truly become a many-headed mon- 
ster, to be tamed and led at will. The tremendous power 
of suffrage, like the strength of the eyeless Nazarite, so far 
from being their protection, will but serve to pull down up- 
on their heads the temple their ancestors reared for them. 
Caballers and demagogues will find it an easy task to de- 
lude those who have deluded themselves ; and the freedom 
of the people will finally be buried in the grave of their 
virtues. National greatness may survive — splendid tal- 
ents and brilliant victories may fling their delusive lustre 
abroad — these can illumine the darkness that hangs round 
the throne of a despot — but their light will be like the 
baleful flame that hovers over decaying mortality, and tells 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 155 

of the corruption that festers beneath. The immortal 
spirit will have gone — and along our shores, and among 
our hills — those shores made sacred by the sepulchre of 
the Pilgrim, those hills hallowed by the uncoffined bones 
of the Patriot — even there, in the ears of their degenerate 
descendants, shall ring the last knell of departed liberty. 



EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON THE MORAL DIGNITY OF THE 
MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE. V7AYLAND. 

Philosophers have speculated much concerning a pro- 
cess of sensation, which has commonly been denominated, 
the emotion of sablimity. Aware that, like any other sim- 
ple feeling, it must be incapable of definition, they have 
seldom attempted to define it ; but, content with remarking 
the occasions on which it is excited, they have told us that 
it arises in general from the contemplation of whatever is 
vast in nature, splendid in intellect, or lofly in morals. Or, 
to express the same idea somewhat varied, in the language 
of a critic of antiquity, ' that alone is truly sublime of 
which the conception is vast, the effect irresistible, and the 
remembrance scarcely if ever to be erased.' 

But although philosophers alone have written about this 
emotion, they are far from being the only men who have 
felt it. The untutored peasant, when he has seen the au- 
tumnal tempest collecting between the hills, and as it ad- 
vanced, enveloping in misty obscurity, village and hamlet, 
forest and meadow, has tasted the sublime in all its reality ; 
and whilst the thunder has rolled and the lightning flashed 
around him, has exulted in the view of nature moving forth 
in her majesty. The untaught sailor boy, listlessly heark- 
ening to the idle ripple of the midnight wave, when on a 
sudden he has thought upon the unfathomable abyss be- 
neath him, and the wide waste of waters around him, and 
the infinite expanse above him, has enjoyed to the full the 
emotion of sublimity, svhilst his inmost soul has trembled 
at the vastness of its own conceptions. But why need I 
multiply illustrations from nature ? who does not recollect 
the emotion he has felt while surveying aught in the ma- 
terial w.orld of terror or of vastness. 



156 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

And this sensation is not produced by grandeur in mate- 
rial objects alone. It is also excited on most of those oc- 
casions in which we see man tasking to the uttermost, the 
energies of his intellectual or moral nature. Through the 
long lapse of centuries, who without emotion has read of 
Leonidas and his three hundred's throwing themselves as 
a barrier before the myriads of Xerxes, and contending 
unto death for the liberties of Greece. 

But we need not turn to classic story to find all that is 
great in human action ; we find it in our own times, and in 
the history of our own country. Who is there of us, that 
even in the nursery, has not felt his spirit stir within him, 
when with childlike wonder he has listened to the story of 
Washington ? And although the terms of the narrative 
were scarcely intelligible, yet the young soul kindled at 
the thought of one man's working out the deliverance of a 
nation. And as our understanding, strengthened by age, 
was at last able to grasp the detail of this transaction, we 
saw that our infantile conceptions had fallen far short of its 
grandeur. Oh ! if an American citizen ever exults in the 
contemplation of all that is sublime in human enterprise, it 
is when, bringing to mind the men who first conceived the 
idea of this nation's independence, he beholds them esti- 
mating the power of her oppressor, the resources of her 
citizens, deciding in their collected might that ^ this na- 
tion should be free,' and, through the long years of trial 
that ensued, never blenching from their purpose, but free- 
ly redeeming the pledge they had given to consecrate to it 
* their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.' 



SECOND EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON THE MORAL DIGNITY 
OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE. WAYLAND. 

And now, my hearers, deliberately consider the nature 
of the missionary enterprise. Reflect upon the dignity of 
its object, the high moral and intellectual powers, which 
are to be called forth in its execution ! the simplicity, be- 
nevolence, and efficacy of the, means by which all this is 
to be achieved ; and we ask you, does not every other en- 
terprise, to which man ever put forth his strength, dwindle 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 161 

into insignificance before that of preaching Christ crucifi- 
ed to a lost and perishing world. Engaged in such an ob- 
ject, you can easily perceive how it is that we are not soon 
disheartened by those who tell us of the difficulties, nay, 
the hopelessness of our undertaking. They may point us 
to countries, once the seat of the church, now overspread 
with Mohammedan delusion ; or bidding us look at na- 
tions, whb once believed as we do, now contending for 
what we consider fatal error, they may assure us that our 
cause is declining. The assumption that our cause is de- 
clining is utterly gratuitous. We think it not difl^icult to 
prove that the distinctive principles we so much vene- 
rate, never swayed so powerful an influence over the des- 
tinies of the human race, as at this very moment. Point us 
to those nations of the earth to whom moral and intellectu- 
al cultivation, inexhaustible resources, progress in arts, 
and sagacity in council, have assigned the highest rank in 
political importance, and you point us to nations, whose 
religious opinions are most closely allied to those we cher- 
ish. Besides, when was there a period, since the days of 
the Apostles, in which so many converts have been made 
to these principles as have been made, both from christian 
^nd pagan nations, within the last five and twenty years. 
Never did the people of the saints of the Most High look 
so much like going forth in serious earnest, to take posses- 
sion of the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the 
kingdom under the whole heaven as at this very day. 

But suppose the cause did seem declining, we should 
see no reason to relax our exertions, for Christ has said, 
preach the gospel to every creature, and appearances, 
whether prosperous or adverse, alter not the obligation to 
obey a positive command of Almighty God. Again, sup- 
pose all that is affirmed were true. If it must be, let it be. 
Let the dark cloud of infidelity overspread Europe, cross 
the ocean, and cover our beloved land — let nation after na- 
tion swerve from the faith— let iniquity abound, and the 
love of many wax cold, even until there is on the face of 
this earth, but one pure church of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ — -all we ask is, that we may be members of 
that one church. God grant that we may throw ourselves 
into this Thermopylce of the moral universe. 

But even then, we should have no fear that the church 
14 



m THU NEW SPEAKER. 

of God would be exterminated. We would call to retiiem - 
branee the years of the right hand of the Most High. We 
would recollect there was once a time, when the whole 
church of Christ, not only could be, but actually was gath- 
ered with one accord in one place. It was then that that 
place was shaken, aa with a rushing mighty wind, and they 
were all filled with th^ Holy Ghost. That same day, three 
thousand were ad^d to the Lord. Soon, we hear, they 
have filled Jerusalem with their doctrine. — The church 
has commenced her march— Samaria has with one accord 
believed the gospel — Antioch has become obedient to the 
faith — the name of Christ has been proclaimed throughout 
Asia Minor — the temples of the gods, as though smitten by 
an invisible hand, are deserted — the citizens of Ephesus 
cry out in despair. Great is Diana of the Ephesians — li- 
centious Corinth is purified by the preaching oT Christ cru- 
cified. Persecution puts forth her arm to arrest the 
spreading superstition, but the progress of the faith cannot 
be stayed. The church of God advances unhurt amidst 
rocks and dungeons, persecutions and death^ — she has en- 
tered Italy, and appears before the walls of the Eternal 
City — idolatry falls prostrate at her approach— her ensign 
floats in triumph over the capitol — she has placed upon 
her brow the diadem of the Ctesars. 



EXTRACT FROM A DISCOURSE ON THE DUTIES OF AN AME- 
RICAN CITIZEN. WAYLAND. 

We have thus far spoken only of the effects which this 
country might produce upon the politics of Europe, sim- 
ply by her example. It is not impossible, however, that 
she may be called to exert an influence still more direct 
on the destinies of man, should the rulers of Europe make 
war upon the principles of our constitution, because its 
existence ^ may operate as an example ; ' — or, should a 
universal appeal be made to arms, on the question of civil 
and religious liberty ; it is manifest that we must take no 
secondary part in the controversy. The contest will in- 
volve the civilized world, and the blow will be struck 
which must decide the fate of man for centuries to come. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. im 

Then will the hour have arrived, when uniting with her- 
self the friends of freedom throughout the world, this 
country must breast herself to the shock of congregated 
nations. Then will she need the wealth of her merchants, 
the prowess of her warriors, and the sagacity of her states- 
men. Then, on the altars of our God, let us each one de- 
vote himself to the cause of the human race ; and in the 
name of the Lord of Hosts go forth unto the battle. If 
need be, let our choicest blood flow freely ; for life itself 
is valueless, when such interests are at stake. Then, 
when a world in arms is assembling to the conflict, may 
this country be found fighting in the vanguard for the lib- 
erties of man. God himself hath summoned her to the 
contest, and she may not shrink back. For this hour may 
he by his grace prepare her. 

And if the cause of true religion and of man shall 
eventually triumph, as v/e trust in God it will, who can 
tell how splendid are the destinies which will then await 
this country ? One feeling, the love of liberty, will have 
cemented together all the nations of the earth. Though 
speaking different languages and inhabiting different re- 
gions, all will be but one people, united in the pursuit of 
one object, the happiness of the whole. And at the head 
of this truly ' holy alhance,' if faithful to her trust, will 
then this nation be found. The first that taught them to 
be free ; the first that suffered in the contest ; the nation 
that most freely and most firmly stood by them in the hour 
of their calamity ; — at her feet will they lay the tribute of 
universal gratitude. Each one bound to her by every 
sentiment of interest and affection, she will be the centre 
of the new system, which shall then emerge out of the 
chaos of ancient institutions. Henceforth she will sway 
for ages the destinies of the world..*- * * # * 

So long, then, as our people remain virtuous and intelli- 
gent, our government will remain stable. While they 
clearly perceive, and honestly decree justice, our laws 
will be wholesome, and the principles of our constitution 
will recommend themselves every where to the common 
sense of man. But should our people become ignorant 
S,nd vicious ; should their decisions become the dictates of 
passion and venality, rather than of reason and of right, 
that moment are our liberties at an end ; and, glad to es- 



160 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

cape the despotism of millions, \ve shall fiee for shelter to 
the despotism of one. Then will the world's last hope be 
extinguished, and darkness brood for ages over the whole 
human race. * 

So important is moral and intellectual cultivation, if we 
would prepare our country to stand forth the bulwark of 
the liberties of the world. Should the time to try men's 
souls ever come again, our reliance under God must be, 
as it was before, on the character of our citizens. Our 
soldiers must be men whose bosoms h?.ve swollen with the 
conscious digni y of freemen, and who, firmly trusting to 
a righteous God, could look unmoved on embattled nations 
leagued together for purposes of wrong. When the 
means of education every where throughout our country 
shall be free as the air we breathe ; when every family 
shall have its Bible, and every individual shall love to 
read it ; then, and not till then, shall we be prepared to 
stand forth between the oppressor and the oppressed, and 
say to the proud wave of domination, ' Thus far shalt thou 
go and no farther.' 



DUTY OF EDUCATING THE POOR. EXTRACT FROM A SER- 
MON DELIVERED ON THE TWENTYFIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
THE BOSTON FEMALE ASYLUM. GREENWOOD. 

Even at this enlightened day it is not entirely a super- 
fluous task to vindicate the claims of the offspring of the 
poor, of the poorest, of the vilest, to that mental cultiva- 
tion, which it is in the power of every community to be- 
■stow. The old notion is not yet stowed away among the 
forgotten rubbish of old times, that those who were born 
to labor and servitude, were born for nothing but labor and 
servitude, and that the less they knew, the better they 
would obey ; and that the only instruction which was ne- 
cessary or safe for them, was that which would teach them 
to m.ove like automatons, precisely as those above them 
pulled the strings. I say, we still hear this principle as- 
serted, though perhaps in more guarded and indefimte 
language ; and a more selfish, pernicious, disgraceful prin- 
ciple, in whatever terms it may he muffled up, never in- 



*afi NEW SMAKER. 161 

suited human nature, nor degraded human society. It is 
the leading principle of despotism, the worst feature of 
aristocracy, and a profane contradiction of that indubitable 
Word, which has pronounced all men to be brethren, and 
in every thing which relates to their common nature, 
equal. 

I have said, that even the children of the vilest and 
lowest portion of the community, shared in the general 
right to the advantages of education. Their claim pos- 
sesses a peculiar title to our consideration. Some have 
spoken, as if such were beyond or beneath our assistance, 
and would bring contamination from their birth-place.' 
Their lot is in the region of irreclaimable wickedness, it is 
said ; and as their parents are, so are they destined to be- 
come. Destined ! and so they are, if you will not save 
them. They are destined, and forever chained down, to a 
state of moral loathsomeness, in which degradation seems 
to be swallowed with the food, and vice breathed in with 
the air. And shall they stay in such a pit of darkness ? 
Is not their situation the strongest possible appeal which 
can be made to your pity, and your generosity, and your 
sense of justice, and your love of good ? Does it not call 
on you most loudly and imperatively, to pluck these brands 
from the burning, ere yet they have been scorched too 
deeply and darkly by the flame ? Nothing is more proba- 
ble than that such children may be preserved to virtue by 
a timely interference ; nothing is more certain than that 
they will be lost if they remain. I know of no case which 
promises such ample success and reward to the spirited 
efforts of benevolence, as this. Vice may be cut off, in a 
great measure, of her natural increase, by the adoption of 
her offspring into the family of virtue ; and though it is 
true that the empire of guilt receives constant emigrations 
and fresh accessions of strength, from all the res^ions of 
society, yet it is equally as true, that they whose only 
crime it is that they were born within its confines, may be 
snatched away and taught another allegiance, before they 
have become familiar with its language, its customs, and 
its corruptions, and have vowed a dreadful fidelity to its 
laws. 

I deny not that a nation may become powerful, victo- 
rious, renowned, wealthy, and full of great men, evea 
14 # 



162 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

though it should neglect the education of the humbler 
classes of its population ; but I do deny, that it can ever 
become a happy or a truly pros*perous nation, till all its 
children are taught of the Lord. To say nothing of the 
despotism of the East, look at the kingdoms of Europe, 
with their battles, and their alliances, and their pompous 
and gaudy ceremonies, and their imposing clusters of high 
titles and celebrated names ; and after this showy phantas- 
magoria has passed away, mark the condition of the ma- 
jority, observe their superstition, their slavishness, their 
sensual enjoyments, their limited range of thought, their 
almost brutalized existence ; mark this, and say whether 
a heavenly peace is among them. Alas ! they know not 
the things which belong to their peace, nor are their rulers 
desirous that they should know, but rather prefer that they 
should live on in submissive ignorance, that they may be 
at all times ready to swell the trains of their masters' 
pride, and be sacrificed by hecatombs to their masters' 
ambition. 

Far different were the views of those gifted patriarchs 
who founded a new empire here. They were determined 
that all their children should be taught of the Lord ; and 
side by side with the humble dwellings, which sheltered 
their heads from the storms of a strange world, arose the 
school-house and the house of God. And ever after, the 
result has been peace, great, unexampled peace ; peace to 
the few, who gradually encroached on the primeval forests 
of the land, and peace to the millions who have now 
spread themselves abroad in it from border to border. In 
the strength and calm resolution of that peace, they stood 
up once, and shook themselves free from the rusted fetters 
of the world ; and in the beauty and dignity of that peace 
they stand up now, self-governed, orderly, and independ- 
ent, a wonder to the nations. If a stranger should inquire 
of me the principal cause and source of this greatness of 
my country, would I bid him look on the ocean widely 
loaded with our merchandise, and proudly ranged by our 
navy ; or on the lands where it is girdled by roads, and 
scored by canals, and burdened with the produce of our 
industry and ingenuity .? Would I bid him look on these 
things as the springs of our prosperity ? Indeed I would 
not. Nor would I shovf him our colleges and literary ia- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 163 

Stitutions, for he can see nobler ones elsewhere. I would 
pass all these by, and would lead him out by some winding 
highway among the hills and woods ; and when the culti- 
vated spots grew small and infrequent, and the houses be- 
came few and scattered', and a state of primitive nature 
seemed to be immediately before us, I would stop in some 
sequestered spot, and directed by a steady hum, like that 
of bees, I would point out to him a lowly building, hardly 
better than a shed, but full of blooming, happy children, 
collected together from the remote and unseen farm-hous- 
es, conning over their various tasks, or reading with a 
voice of reverential monotony, a portion of the Word of 
God ; and I would bid him note, that even here, in the 
midst of poverty and sterility, was a specimen of the thou- 
sand nurseries in which all our children are taught of the 
Lord, and formed, some to legislate for the land, and all 
to understand its constitution and laws, to maintain their 
unspotted birthright, and contribute to the great aggregate 
of the intelligence, the morality, the power and peace of 
this mighty commonwealth. 



RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. EXTRACT FROM A THANKSGIVING 

SERMON. BUCKMIKSTER. 

When there is a perfectly fair competition between all 
the sects of a community each one of them finds, that it 
can maintain its influeace, or its numbers, only by a de- 
gree of purity in its doctrines, which will stand the test of 
inquiry, or by the superior sanctity of its mrorals, or by the 
especial exertions and zeal of its ministers. Hence, though 
the prodigious diversity of religious opinions in a free coun- 
try will sometimes be found productive of serious evils, 
yet are these evils counterbalanced by the circumstance, 
that here religion is brought home to the bosom of every 
man ; it becomes his personal concern ; he worships God 
with more ardent and devotional satisfaction, because he 
can worship him according to the dictates of his own con- 
science. Thousands of temptations to hypocrisy are thus 
cast off at once ; the sacred inviolability of religious opin- 
ion becomes an hereditary sentiment, which every man is 



164 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

iproud to transmit. Feeling the value of his own liberfyj 
he learns to respect what he thinks the erroneous conscience 
of his brother ; and by the unembarassed communication 
of every truth, of every doubt, and every interesting sen- 
timent, the celestial fire of religious inquiry is enkindled 
in thousands of hearts, and the grand work of our spiritu- 
ial perfection hastened and promoted. My friends, shall 
we become the more indifferent about our faith, as the 
means of ascertaining its truth and purity are multiplied ? 
Shall that unbounded liberty of conscience, which we 
enjoy, terminate in nothing but the liberty of not bestowing 
a thought on the subject ? Shall the unrestrained freedom 
of a religious choice amount to nothing but freedom from 
the restraints of every species of religious belief .'' 

Bear with me yet a little longer, that I may mention, in 
the last place, the peculiar advantages we enjoy in our re- 
moteness from the wars, the tumults, the revolutions and 
the crimes of the older world. A mighty drama is acting 
on the theatre of Europe. We, sit here peaceful specta- 
tors, while an ocean rolls between us and that stage of 
fearful events. Feeling none of 'the miseries of war, we 
have not yet witnessed all the confusion of its crimes. In- 
deed, my friends, our situation is unexampled in the re- 
cords of nations. Brought into the rank of independent 
states at this late period of the world, the experience of 
past ages is spread out before us, and all the rolls of time 
are unfolded for our instruction. A wonderful providence 
seems to lift us up miraculously to a lofty region of obser- 
vation, that we may see the shock of empires, and tremble, 
and be thankful. Indeed, it would seem, as if a last ex- 
periment were making among us, to prove whether a na- 
tion can profit any thing, not merely by the history of its 
predecessors, but by a series of dreadful events, which are 
passing directly before its eyes. God grant, the grand ex- 
periment may succeed ! You, and I, and generations yet 
unborn, are interested in it. It is to be seen, whether re- 
ligion has found here that permanent shelter she sought. 
It is to be seen, whether the only valuable blessings of hu- 
man life, order, virtue, mental cultivation, religious lil)er- 
ty and religious sentiments can coexist with a state of per- 
manent and unexampled peace and prosperity. It is to be 
seen; in short, whether a people can be entrusted with the 
very blessings, for which thousands of great and good men 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 165 

have most earnestly sought ; or whether we shall add 
another to the list of corrupted and corrupting states, and 
go down with the rest, ener'vated by the crimes of youth, 
to the vast cemetery of nations. God, of thy mercy, avert 
this result ! Scourge us, distress us, reduce us,. alarm us, 
if we may, by any means, preserve that righteousness, 
which exalteth a nation, and may escape that sin, which is 
the ruin of any people. 



CHARACTER OE NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. PHILLIPS. 

He is fallen ! We may now pause before that splendid 
prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, 
whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. 

Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a 
sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own origin- 
ality. 

A mind bold, independent, and decisive — a will, despo- 
tic in its dictates — an energy that distanced expedition and 
a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the 
outline of this extraordinary character — the most extraor- 
dinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, 
or reigned, or fell. 

Flung into life, in the midst of a Revolution, that quick- 
ened every energy of a people who acknowledged no su- 
perior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and 
a scholar by charity ! 

With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his tal- 
ents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and 
genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from 
him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive 
but interest — he acknowledged no criterion but success — 
he worshipped no God but ambition, and with an eastern 
devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary 
to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there 
was no opinion that he did not prom'ulgate ; in the hope of 
a dynasty, he upheld the crescent ; for the sake of a di- 
vorce, he bowed before the Cross ; the orphan of St. Louis, 
he became the adopted child of the Republic : and with a 
parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and 
the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. 



166 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope ; a pre- 
tended patriot, he impoverished the country ; and in the 
name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore 
without shame, the diadem of the Caesars ! 

Through this pantomime of his policy, fortune played the 
clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beg- 
gars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took 
the colour of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all 
that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. 
Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory — 
his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny — ruin itself only 
elevated him to empire. 

But if his fortune was great, his genius was transcen- 
dent ; decision flashed upon his councils ; and it was the 
same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects, his 
combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans per- 
fectly impracticable ; but in his hands, simplicity marked 
their developement, and success vindicated their adoption. 

His person partook the character of his mind — if the one 
never yieided in the cabinet, the other never bent in the 
field. 

Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount — space 
no opposition that he did not spurn ; and whether amid Al- 
pine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he seemed proof 
against peril, and empowered with ubiquity ; The whole 
continent of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity of 
his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Skepti- 
cism bowed to the prodigies of his performance ; romance 
assumed the air of history ; nor was there aught too incre- 
dible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the 
world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag 
over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity 
became common places in his contemplation ; kings were 
his people — nations were his outposts ; and he disposed of 
courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabi- 
nets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chess- 
board ! 

Amid all these changes he stood immutable as adamant. 
It mattered little whether in the field or the drawing room 
— with the mob or the levee — wearing the jacobin bonnet 
or the iron crown — banishing a Braganza, or espousing a 
Hapsbourgh — dictating peace on a raft to the czar of Rus- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. HI 

sia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic — -he 
was still the same military despot ! 

Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the darling 
of the army ; and whether in the camp or in the cabinet, he 
never forsook a friend or forgot a favor. Of all his sol- 
diers, not one abandoned him, till affection was useless, 
and their first stipulation was for the safety of their favor- 
ite. 

Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time 
such an individual consistency, were never united in the 
same character — ^A Royalist — A Republican and an Em- 
peror — a Mahometan, a Catholic, and a patron of the Syn- 
agogue — a Subaltern and a Sovereign — a Traitor and a 
Tyrant — a Christian and an Iniidel-^he was, through all 
his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible origi- 
nal — the same mysterious incomprehensible self— -the man 
without a model, and without a shadow. 

His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In short, 
his whole history was like a dream to the world, and no 
man can tell how or why he was awakened from the rev- 
erie. 

That he has done much evil there is little doubt ; that 
he has been the origin of much good there is just as little. 
Kings may learn from him that their safest study, as well 
as their noblest, is the interest of the people ; the people 
are taught by him that there is no despotism so stupendous 
against v/hich they have not a resource ; and to those who 
would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson that 
if ambition can raise them from the lowest station, it can 
also prostrate them from the highest. 



We now come to a serious objection to Milton's prose 
Writings, and that is, that they are disfigured by pa^rty 
spirit, coarse invective, and controversial asperity ; and 
here we are prepared to say, that there are passages in 
these works which every admirer of his character must 
earnestly desire to expunge. Milton's alleged virulence 
watS manifested towards private and public foes. In 



168 THJE NiEW SMAKEft. 

regard to the public enemies whom he assailed, we mean 
the despots in church and state, and the corrupt institutions 
which hfed stirred up a civil war, the general stram of his 
writings, though strong and stern, must exalt him, notwith- 
standing his occasional violence, among the friends of civil 
and religious liberty. That liberty was in peril. Great 
levils were struggling for perpetuity, and could only be 
broken down by great power. Milton felt, that interests 
of infinite moment were at stake ; and who will blame 
him for binding himself to them with the whole energy of 
his great mind, and for defending them with fervor and ve- 
hemence ? There is constantly going on in our world a 
conflict between good and evil. The cause of human na- 
ture has always to wrestle with foes. All improvement is 
a victory won by struggles. It is especially true of those 
great periods, which have been distinguished by revolutions 
in government and religion, and from which we date the 
most rapid movements of the human mind, that they have 
been signalized by conflict. Thus Christianity convulsed 
the world and grew up amidst storms ; and the reformation 
of Luther was a signal to universal war ; and Liberty in 
both worlds has encountered opposition, over which she 
has triumphed only through her own immortal energies. 
At such periods, men gifted with great power of thought 
-and loftiness of sentiment are especially summoned to the 
conflict with evil. They hear, as it were, in their own 
magnanimity and generous aspirations, the voice of a divi- 
nity ; and thus commissioned and burning with a passion- 
ate devotion to truth and freedom, they must and will speak 
with an indignant energy ; and they ought not to be meas- 
ured by the standard of ordinary men in ordinary times. 
Men of natural softness and timidity, of a sincere but ef- 
feminate virtue, will be apt to look on these bolder, hardi- 
er spirits, as violent, perturbed, and uncharitable ; and the 
charge will not be wholly groundless. The deeply moved 
soul will speak strongly, and ought so to speak as to move 
and shake nations. 

Milton reverenced and loved human nature, and attach* 
ed himselfto its great interests with a fervor of which only- 
such a mind was capable. He lived in one of those sol- 
emn periods which determine the character of ages to 
Gome, His spirit was stirred to its very centre by the 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 1G9 

presence of danger. He lived in the midst of the battle. 
That the ardor of his spirit sometimes passed the bounds of 
wisdom and charity, and poured forth unwarrantable in- 
vectives, we see and lament. But the purity and loftiness 
of his mind break forth amidst his bitterest invectives. We 
see a noble nature still. We see that no feigned love of 
truth and freedom was a covering for selfishness and ma- 
lignity. He did indeed love and adore uncorrupted relig- 
ion, and intellectual liberty, and let his name be enrolled 
among their truest champions. 



CHARACTER OF THE PURITANS. EXTRACT FROM A TREATISE 

ON Milton's works. — Edinburgh review. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peA 
culiar character from the daily contemplation of superior 
beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowl- 
edging, in general terms, an over-ruling Providence, they 
habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Be- 
ing, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose in- 
spection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve 
him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of exist- 
ence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious hom- 
age which other sects substituted for the worship of the 
soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Dei- 
ty through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on 
the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him ^face 
to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial dis- 
tinctions. The difference between the greatest and mean- 
est of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the 
boundless interval which separated the whole race from him 
on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recog- 
nized no title to superiority but his favor ; and confident of 
that favor, they despised all the accomplishments and all the 
^lignitiesof the world. If they were unacquainted with the 
works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read 
in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in 
the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were 
recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not ac- 
companied by a splendid train of menials, legions of minis- 
15 



170 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

tering angels had charge over them. Their palaces Were 
houses not made with hands ; their diadems crowns of glo- 
ry which should never fade away ! On the rich and the 
eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with 
contempt : For they esteemed themselves rich in a more 
precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime lan- 
guage, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and 
priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very 
meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious 
and terrible importance belonged — on whose slightest action 
the Spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious inter- 
est ; who had been destined, before heaven and earth were 
created,H:o enjoy a felicity, which should continue when 
heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which 
short sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes had 
been ordaped on his account. For his sake empires had 
risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Al- 
mighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangel- 
ist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by 
no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. 
He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, 
by the blood of no, earthly sacrifice. It was for him that 
the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, 
that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at 
the sufferings of her expiring God. 



EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE ERECTION 
or A MONUMENT TO JOHN HARVARD, SEPT. 26, 1828.—- 
E. EVERETT. 

Of all the first fathers of New England, the wise and 
provident rulers, the grave magistrates, the valiant cap- 
tains, — those who counselled the people in peace, and led 
them in war,— the gratitude of this late posterity has first 
sought out the spot, where this transient stranger was laid 
to rest, scarce a year after his arrival in America. It is 
•not that we are insensible to the worth of their characters, 
nor that we are ungrateful for tluir services. But it was 
given to the venerated maif whom we commemorate this 
day, first to strike the key-note in the character of this 



THE NEW. SPEAKER. 171 

peopte : — first to perceive with a prophet's foresight, and 
to promote with a princely liberality, considering his 
means, that connexion between private munificence and 
public education, which, well understood and pursued by 
others, has given to New England no small portion of her 
name and her praise in the land. What is there to distin- 
guish our community so honorable, as its institutions for 
general education, — beginning with its public schools, sup- 
ported wholly by the people, and continued through the 
higher institutions, in whose establishment and domination 
public ad private liberality have gone hand in hand ? 
What so eminently reflects credit upon us, and gives to 
ou^ institutions a character not possessed by those of many 
other communities, as the number and liberality of the pri- 
vate benefactions, which have been made to them ^ The 
excellent practice of liberal giving has obtained a currency 
here, which, if I mistake not, it possesses in few other plac- 
es. Men give, not merely from their abundance, but from 
their competence ; and following the great example, 
which we now celebrate of John Harvard, who gave half 
his fortune, and all his books, it is no uncommon thing for 
men to devote a very considerable portion of their estates, 
not passing the bounds of moderation, to the endowment of 
public institutions. 

And well does the example of Harvard teach us, that 
what is thus given away, is, in reality, the portion best 
saved, and longest kept. In the public trusts to which it is 
confided, it is safe, as far as any thing human is safe, from 
the vicissitudes to which all else is subject. Here neither 
private extravagance can squander, nor personal.necessity 
exhaust it. Here it will not perish with the poor clay, to 
whose natural wants it would else have been appropriated. 
Here, unconsumed itself, it will feed the hunger of mind, 
the only thing on earth that never dies ; and endure and do 
good for ages, after the donor himself has ceased to live, 
in aught but his benefactions. 

There is, in the human heart, a natural craving to be re- 
membered by those who succeed us. It is not the first 
passion which awakens in the soul, but it is the strongest 
which animates, and the last which leaves it. It is a sort 
of instinctive philosophy, which tells us, that we, who live 
and act, and move about the earth, and claim it for our 



172 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

own, are not the human race ; that we are Kut a small part 
' of it ; that those who are to follow us when we are gone, 
and those that here lie slumbering beneath our feet, are 
with us but one company, of which we are the smallest 
part. It tells us, that the true glory of man is not that 
which blazes out for a moment and dazzles the contempo- 
rary spectator, but that which lives when the natural life is 
gone ; which is acknowledged by a benefitted and grateful 
posterity, whom it brings back, even as it does us'^at this 
moment, with thankful offerings at an humble tomb, and 
gives to an otherwise obscure name a bright place on the 
long catalogue of ages. 

We stand here amidst the graves of some of the earliest 
and best of the fathers and sons of New England. Men 
of usefulness and honor in their generation, are gathered 
around us, and among them no doubt, not a few, whose 
standing in the community, v/hose public services, and 
whose fortune placed them, in the estimate of their day, 
far above the humble minister of the gospel, v/ho landed on 
our shores, but to leave them forever. But were it given 
to man to live over the life that is passed, and could the 
voice of a superior being penetrate the clay, on which we 
stand and call on the sleepers to signify, whether they 
would not gladly exchange the wealth they enjoyed, to the 
deathless name of this humble stranger, they would start 
up as one man, from beneath the sods that cover them. 



EXTRACT FROM A TREATISE ON THE ALIEN LAW OF ENGLAND. 
EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

These are the honorable exiles, who, inheriting the 
principles of Locke and Sydney, have inherited their mis- 
fortunes. In former days their presence would have been 
an honorable preference ; but misery is a sacred • thing. 
Unless we reserve and appropriate all our sympathy for the 
case of men in power, some drops must stray over for the 
sorrows of the poor and friendless. Had Burke lived to 
these days, and seen the wretched reaction of tyranny 
abroad, he would again have fulminated over Europe, and 
scattered around those thrones, whom his mighty genius 



THE IVEW SPEAKER. 173 

labored to rescue from impending ruin, the whole eloquence 
of a soul, whose feelings and imagination seemed to gath- 
er vividness and intensity from age. When he gave this 
pledge, in case politics should ever resume their ancient 
tendency, he could never have anticipated that he should 
be called tipon to redeem it under circumstances like the 
present. 

Cruel has been the perfidy by which the triumph of na- 
tional independence has been lowered, on the continent, to 
little more than the worthless struggle for a change of 
masters ; miserable the catastrophe where the pen drops 
poison quicker than the sword sheds blood ! Incalculable 
the destruction of loyal faith and moral confidence, when, 
after all the hopes in which we were made to dress our- 
selves, and the glorious motives by which we were roused 
and impassioned, the most delightful half of Europe is left 
to calculate, in chains and darkness, the amount of the ad- 
vantages which the universal tyranny of a partnership of 
kings, whose fears and ignorance are covering their king- 
doms with sackcloth and ashes, possesses over the univer- 
sal empire of — a conqueror it is true — but of a statesman 
and a hero ; — a man who did more, in a few troubled years, 
for advancing the countries he enslaved, than their heredi- 
tary masters had attempted in the whole history of their 
race ! We are not required to interfere and realize the 
promises that have been broken ; nor to corae forward and 
fulfil the expectations which we joined in raising. Sympa- 
thy and security for those who fly to us, is the only part of 
the solemn obligation which circumstances have imposed 
on us, that we are now called upon to discharge. The 
humble service asked of us, is a compassionate welcome, 
and a free, undegraded, unconditional asylum. 

Let us repeal, then, this odious enactment, this alien 
law, and, as Englishmen, we still shall not need to blush in 
the presence of these strangers. Take away from among us 
this unholy thing, and our soil will at once recover its an- 
cient saving virtue ! our land may then echo again the poet's 
praise, — ' Slaves cannot breathe in England ! ' — and truth 
justify the orator's splendid peroration, — ' I speak in the 
spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensu- 
rate with, and inseparable from British soil ; which pro- 
claims, even to the stranger and sojourner, the momeat he 
15* 



174 THE NKW SPEAKER. 

sets his foot on British earth, that the ground on which he 
treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal 
freedom. No matter in what language his doom may have 
been pronounced, no matter what complexion incompatible 
with freedom, — no matter in what disastrous battle his lib- 
erty may have been cloven down, — no matter with what so- 
lemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slave- 
ry ; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, 
the altar and t"he God sink together in the dust ; his soul 
walks abroad in her ov/n majesty ; his body swells beyond 
the measure of his chains, that burst from around him, and 
he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the 
irresistible Genius of Universal Freedom.' 



EXTRACT FROM .A SPEECH ON THE PANAMA MISSION, 
D. WEBSTER. 

Sir, T do not wish to overrate, I do not overrate, the 
progress of these new states in the great work of estab- 
lishing a well secured popular liberty, I know that to be 
a great attair-ment, and I know they were but pupils in 
school. But, thank God, they are in the school. They 
are called to meet difficulties, such as neither we nor 6ur 
fathers encountered. For these we ought to make large 
allowances. No rational man expects that the south can 
run the same rapid career as the north ; or that an insur- 
gent province of Spain is in the same condition as the 
English colonies, when they first asserted their independ- 
ence. There is, doubtless, much more to be done, in the 
first than in the last case. But on that account the honor 
of the attempt is not less ; and if all difficulties shall in 
time be surmounted, it will be greatei'. The work may 
be more arduous — it is not less noble, because there may 
be more of ignorance to enlighten ; more of bigotry to 
subdue ; more of prejudice to eradicate. If it be a weak- 
ness to feel a strong interest in the success of these great 
revolutions, I confess myself guilty of that weakness. If 
it be weak to feel that I am an American, to think that re- 
cent events have not only opened new modes of inter- 
course, but have created also new grounds of regard and 



^ THE NEW SPEAKER. 175 

sympathy between ourselves and our neighbours ; if it be 
weak to feel that the south, in her present state, is some- 
what more emphatically a part of America, than when she 
lay obscure, oppressed, and unknown, under the grinding 
bondage of a foreign power ; if it be weak to rejoice, 
when, even in any corner of the earth, human beings are 
able to get up from beneath oppression, to erect them- 
selves, and to enjoy the proper happiness of their intelli- 
gent nature ; if this be weak, it is a weakness from which 
I claim no exemption. 

We cannot be so blind-^we cannot so shut up our sens- 
es, and smother our faculties, as not to see, that in the 
progress and the establishment of South American liberty, 
our own example has been among the most stimulating 
causes. That great light — a light which can never be 
hid — the light of our own glorious revolution, has shone 
on the path of the South American patriots, from the be- 
ginning of their course. In their emergencies, they have 
looked to our experience 5 in their political institutions, 
they have followed our models ; in their deliberations, they 
have invoked the presiding spirit of our own liberty. They 
have looked steadily, in every adversity, to the great 
northern light. In the hour of bloody conflict, they have 
remembered -the fields which have been consecrated by 
the blood of our own fathers ; and when they have fallen, 
they have wished only to be remembered, with them, as 
men who had acted their parts bravely, for the cause of 
liberty in the western world. 

Sir, I have done. If it be weakness to feel the sympa- 
thy of one's nature excited for such men, in such a cause, 
I am guilty of that weakness. If it be prudence to meet 
their proffered civility,! not with regiprocal kindness, but 
with coldness or with insult, I choose still to follow where 
natural impulse leads, and to give up that false and mis- 
taken prudence, for the voluntary sentiments of my heart. 



176 , THE NEW SPEAKER. V 

EXTRACT FROM A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGEj 
BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY.- — STORY. 

We live in an extraordinary age. It has been marked 
by events, which will leave a durable impression upon the 
pages of history by their own intrinsic importance. But 
they will be read with far deeper emotions in their effects 
upon future ages ; in their consequences upon the happiness 
of whole communities ; in the direct or silent changes 
forced by them into the very structure of society ; in the 
establishment of a new and mighty empire, the, empire of 
public opinion ; in the operation of what Lord Bacon has 
characterized almost as supreme power, the power of 
knowledge, working its way to universality, and interpos- 
ing checks upon government and people, by means gentle 
and decisive, which have never before been fully felt, and 
9.re even now, perhaps, incapable of being fully compre- 
hended. 

And, though we may not arrogate to ourselves the pos- 
session of the first genius, or the first era in human histo- 
ry, let it not be imagined, that we do not live in an extra- 
ordinary age. It is impossible to look around us without 
alternate emotions of exultation and astonishment. What 
shall we say of one revolution, which created a nation out 
of thirteen feeble colonies, and founded the empire of lib- 
erty upon the basis of the perfect equality in rights and 
representation of all its citizens \ which commenced in *i 
struggle by enlightened men for principles, and not for 
places, and in its progress and conclusion exhibited exam- 
ples of heroism, patriotic sacrifices, and disinterested vir- 
tue, which have never been surpassed in the most favored 
regions \ 

What shall we say of another revolution, or rather se- 
ries of revolutions, which has restored to South America the 
independence torn from her three centuries ago by the force 
or by the fraud of those nations, whose present visitations 
bespeak a Providence, which superintends and measures 
out at awful distances its rewards and retributions .^ She 
has risen as it were from the depths of the ocean, where she 
has been buried for ages. Her shores no longer murmur 
with the hoarse surges of her unnavigated waters, or echo 
the jealous footsteps of her armed oppressors. Her forests 



THE NEW SPEAKER, 17T 

and her table lands, her mountains and her valleys gladden 
with the voices of the free. She welcomes to her ports 
the whitening sails of commerce. She f«els, that the 
treasures of her mines, the broad expanse of her rivers, 
the beauty of her lakes, the grandeur of her scenery, the 
products of her fertile and inexhaustible soil, are do long- 
er the close domain of a distant sovereign, but the free 
inheritance of her own children. Sh,e sees, that these are 
to bind her to other nations by ties, which outlive all corti- 
pacts, and all dynasties, — by ties of mutual sympathy, mu- 
tual equality, and mutual interest. - 



SEC0-\D EXTRACT FROM THE SAME. 

To US, Americans, nothing indeed can, or ought to be 
indifferent, that respects the cause of science and litera- 
ture. We have taken a stand among the nations of the 
earth, and have successfully asserted our claim to political 
equality. We possess an enviable elevation, so far as 
concerns the stri>cture of our government, our political 
policy, and the moral energy of our institutions. If we 
are not without rivals in these respects, we are scarcely 
behind any, even in the general estimate of foreign nations 
themselves. But our claims are far more extensive. We 
assert an equality of voice and vote in the republic of Tet- 
ters, and assume for ourselves "the right to decide on the 
merits ®f others, as well as to vindicate our own. These 
are lofty pretensions, which are never conceded without 
proofs, and are severely scrutinized, and slowly admitted 
by the grave judge in the tribunal of letters. We have 
not placed ourselves as humble aspirants, seeking our way 
to higher rewards under the guardianship of experienced 
guides. We ask admission into the temple of fame, as 
joint heirs of the inheritance, capable in the manhood of 
our strerjgth of maintaining our title. We contend for 
prizes with nations, whose intellectual glory has re- 
ceived the hom«age of centuries. France, Italy, Germany, 
England, can point to the past for monuments of their ge- 
nius and skill, and to the present with the undismayed 
confidence of veterans. It is not for us to retire from the 



178 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

ground, which we have chosen to occupy, nor to shut our 
eyes against the difficulties of maintaining it. It is not by 
a few vain boasts, or vainer self-complacency, or rash dar- 
ing, that we are to win our way to the first literary distinc- 
tion. We must do as othevs have done before us. We 
must serve in the hard school of discipline ; we must in- 
vigorate our powers by th6 studies of other times. We 
must guide our footsteps by those stars, which have shone, 
and still continue to shine with unextinguishable light in 
the firmament of learning. Nor have we any reason for 
despondency. There is that in American character, 
which has never yet been found unequal to its purpose. 
There is that in American enterprise, which shrinks not, 
and faints not, and fails not in its labors. We may say, 
with honest pride, 

Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, 
And souls are ripened in our northern sky. 

We may not then shrink from a rigorous examination of 
our own deficiencies in science and literature. If we have 
but a just sense of our wants, we have gained half the 
victory. If we but face our difficulties!, they will fly be- 
fore us. Let us not discredit our just honors by exagger- 
ating little attainments. There are those in other coun- 
tries, who can keenly search out, and boldjy expose every 
false pretension. There are those in our own country, 
who would scorn a reputation ill founded in fact, and ill 
sustained by examples. We have solid claims upon the 
affection and respect of mankind. Let us not jeopard 
them by a false shame, or an ostentatious pride. The 
growth of two hundred years is healthy, lofty, expansive. 
The roots have shot deep and far ; the branches are strong 
and broad. I trust that many, many centuries to come 
will witness the increase and vigor of the stock. Never, 
never, may our posterity have just occasion to speak of 
our country in the expressiveness of Indian rhetoric, ^ It 
is an aged hemlock ; it is dead at the top.' 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 179 



AT SCHENECTADY.-— 1823. 

It is an ordinance of heaven, that man must be employ- 
ed, or be unhappy. Mental or corporeal labor is the des- 
tination of his nature ; and when he ceases to be active, 
he ceases to be useful, and descends to the level of vegeta- 
ble life. And certainly those pursuits which call into ac- 
tivity his intellectual powers, mu^ contribute most to his 
felicity, his dignity, and his usefulness. The vigorous di- 
rection of an active mind to the accomplishment of good 
objects, form its most ecstatic delights. 

The honor and glory of a nation consist in the illustri- 
ous achievements of its sons in the cabinet and in the fieldj 
— in the science and learning which compose the knowledge 
of man, — in the arts and inventions which administer to his 
accommodation, and in the virtues which exalt his charac- 
ter. Scarcely two centuries have elapsed since the settle- 
ment of these United States, and in that period we have 
seen a Washington, a Henry, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse, 
and a Fulton — the most splendid names in war, in elo- 
quence, in philosophy, in astronomy, and in mechanics^ 
which the world has ever witnessed. The congress of pa- 
triots who proclaimed our independence in the face of an 
admiring world, and in the view of approving heaven, have 
descended with three exceptions to the grave : and in this 
illlustrious band were comprised more virtue and wisdom, 
and patriotism and energy, than in any association of an- 
cient or modern times. I might proceed and pronounce 
an eulogium on our savans, who have illustrated philoso- 
phy and the exact sciences — on our literati, who have ex- 
plored the depth and ascended the heights of knowledge — 
on our poets, who have strung the lyre of Apollo — on our 
painters, who have combined the sublime and beautiful in 
the grapkic art — on our statesmen, who have taught the 
ways and means of* establishing the greatest happiness of 
the greatest numbers — and on our theologians who have 
vindicated the ways of God to man. 

When we consider the small areas in which the insignia 
of human greatness have been displayed, wc shall find 
equal cause for astonishment and exaltation. Attica was 
not more extensive than some of our counties, and the 



180 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

whole of Greece did not exceed this state in dimension^; 
Rome, for a long period did not cover so great an extent ; 
and the Swiss Cantons, the United Netherlands, and Eng- 
land, when compared with the illustrious men and the il- 
lustrious deeds of which they can boast, are of a very limited 
space. The United States contains more than a twentieth 
part of the land of this globe, and not six hundred thousand 
square miles less than the whole of Europe. The Deity 
has placed us on a mighty continent : the plastic hand of 
nature has operated on a stupendous scale. Our rivers 
and lakes — our cataracts and mountains — our soil and cli- 
mate — bear the impress of greatness, of fertility, of salubri- 
ty. — In this spacious theatre, replete with the sublime and 
beautiful, let us act a correspondent part. This state, 
which now has a population of a million and a half, is ca- 
pable of supporting ten millions of souls, and before this 
century closes this maximum will be attained. And if in 
the councils of the Almighty it is decreed, that we shall 
continue to advance in all that can render a people intelli- 
gent and virtuous, prosperous and happy, with what rever- 
ence will posterity regard the memory of those who have 
laid the foundation of such greatness and renown. 



EXTPtACT r'ROM MR. m'dUFFIe's SPEECH ON CORRtJPTION. 

Sir, we are apt to treat the idea of our own corruptibili- 
ty, as utterly visionary, and to ask, with a grave affectation 
of dignity — what ! do you think a member of Congress can 
be corrupted ? Sir, I speak what I have long and deliber- 
ately considered, when I say, that since man was created^ 
there never has been a political body on the face of the 
earth, that would not be corrupted under the same circum- 
stances. Corruption steals upon us in a thousand insidious 
forms, when we are least aware of its approaches. Of all 
the forms in which it can present itself, the bribery of of- 
fice, is the most dangerous, because it assumes the guise 
of patriotism to accomplish its fatal sorcery. We are of- 
ten asked, where is the evidence of corruption ^ Have you 
seen it ? Sir, do you expect to see it ? You might as well 
expect to see the embodied forms of pestilence and famine 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 181 

stalking before you, as to see the latent operations of this 
insidious power. We may walk amidst it and breathe its 
contagion^ without being conscious of its presence. All 
experience teaches us the irresistible power of temptation, 
when vice assumes the form of virtue. The great enemy 
of mankind could not have consummated his infernal 
scheme for the seduction of our first parents, but for the 
disguise in which he presented himself Had he appeared 
as the devil, in his proper form ; had the spear of Ithuriel 
disclosed the naked deformity of the fiend of hell, the inliab- 
itants of Paradise would have shrunk with horror from his 
presence. But he came as the insinuating serpent, and 
presented a beautiful apple, the most delicious fruit in all 
the garden. He told his glowing story to the unsuspect- 
ing victim of his guile. ' It can be no crime to taste of 
this delightful fruit. It will disclose to you the knowledge 
of good and evil. It will raise you to an equality with the 
angels.' Such, Sir, was the process ; and in this simple 
but impressive narrative, we have the most beautiful and 
philosophical illustration of the frailty of man, and the pow- 
er of temptation, that could possibly be exhibited. Mr, 
Chairman, I have been forcibly struck with the similarity 
between our present situation and that of Eve, after it was 
announced that Satan was on the borders of Paradise. We, 
too, have been warned that the enemy is on our borders. 
But God forbid that the similitude should be carried any 
farther. Eve, conscious of her innocence, sought tempta- 
tion and defied it. The catastrophe is too fatally known to 
us all. She went, ^ with the blessings of Heaven on her 
head, and its pUrity in her heart,' guarded by the ministry 
of angels — she returned, covered with shame, under the 
heavy denunciation of Heaven's everlasting curse. 

Sir, it is innocence that temptation conquers. If our 
first parent, pure as she came from the hand of God, was 
overcome by the seductive power, let us not imitate her fa- 
tal rashness, seeking temptation, when it is in our power 
to avoid it. Let us not vainly confide in our own infalli- 
bility. We are liable to be corrupted. To an ambitious 
man, an honorable office will appear as beautiful and fas- 
cinating as the apple of Paradise. 

I admit. Sir, that ambition is a passion, at once the most 
powerful and the most useful. Without it, human affairs 
16 



182 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

would become a mere stagnant pool. By means of his pa- 
tronage, the President addresses himself in the most irre- 
sistible manner, to this, the noblest and strongest of our 
passions. All that the imagination can desire — honor, 
power, wealth, ease, are held out as the temptation. Man 
was not made to resist such temptations. It is impossible 
to conceive, Satan himself could not devise, a system which 
would more infallibly introduce corruption and death into 
our political Eden. Sir, the angels fell fiom heaven with 
less temptation. 



THE SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Sir, the Soldiers of the Revolution have a claim of right 
upon us, and I would do ample and equal justice to all, 
and not mete it out with a stinted and partial hand. I 
would not make the payment of our debts to depend upon 
the poverty of our creditors. No, Sir, I would not say to 
the heroes who fought our battles, and, in the dark hour 
of our adversity, wrought out our political salvation, and to 
whom we delivered only tattered rags, and called them, in 
mockery, payment for their services ; men, whose disin- 
terested achievements are not transcended in all the annals 
of chivalry, and who, for us, confronted horrors not sur- 
passed in all the histories of all the martyrs — to these 
men, of honor most cherished, and sentiments most exalt- 
ed — our fathers, the authors of our being — I would 'not 
now say, come before us in the garb of a mendicant ; bow 
your proud spirits in the dust ; tear open the wounds of 
the heart, which you have concealed from every eye, and 
expose your nakedness to a cold, unfeeling world, and put 
all upon record, as a perpetual memorial of your country^s 
ingratitude ; and then, we will bestow a pittance in chari- 
ty ! You talk of erecting statues, and marble memorials 
of the Father of his country. It is well. But could his 
spirit now be heard within these walls, would it not tell 
you, that, to answer his fervent prayers, and verify his 
confident predictions of your gratitude to his companions 
in arms, would be a sweeter incense, a more grateful horn- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 18S 

age to his memory, than the most splendid mausole'um ? 
You gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to La Fayette. 
It was well ; and the whole country resounded, Amen. 
But is not the citizen-soldier, who fought by his side, who 
devoted every thing to your service, and has been depriv- 
ed of his promised reward, equally entitled, I will not say, 
to your liberality, but to your justice ? 

Sir, the present provision for the Soldiers of the Revolu- 
tion is not sufficient. Even the act of 1 828 was less com- 
prehensive than it ought to have been. It should have 
embraced all, without any discrimination, except of servi- 
ces. But that act, partly by subsequent laws, and partly 
by illiberal rules of construction, has been narrowed far 
within its original scope. I am constrained to say, that, 
in the practical execution of these laws, the whole benefi- 
cent spirit of our institutions seems to have been reversed. 
Instead of presuming every man to be upright and true, until 
the contrary appears, every applicant seems to be presup- 
posed to be false and perjured. Instead of bestowing 
these hard-earned rewards with alacrity, they appear to 
have been refused, or yielded with reluctance ; and to 
send away the war-worn veteran, bowed down with the in- 
firmities of age, empty from jour door, seems to have been 
deemed an act of merit. So rigid has been the construc- 
tion and application of the existing law, that cases most 
strictly within its provisions, of meritorious service and 
abject poverty, have beea excluded from its benefits. Yet 
gentlemen tell us, that this law, so administered, is too 
liberal ; that it goes too far, and they would repeal it. 
They would take back even the little which they have 
given ! And is this possible ? Look abroad upon this 
wide extended land, upon its wealth, its happiness, its 
hopes ; and then turn to the aged soldier, who gave 
you all, and see him descend in neglect and poverty 
to the tomb ! The time is short. A few years and 
these remnants of a former age will no longer be seen. 
Then we shall indulge unavailing regrets for our present 
apathy ; for, how can the ingenuous mind look upon the 
grave of an injured benefactor } How poignant the re- 
flection, that the time for reparation and atonement has 
gone forever ! In what bitterness of soul shall we look 
back upon the infatuation which shall have cast aside an 



184 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

opportunity, which never can return, to give peace to our 
consciences ! We shall then endeavour to stifle our con- 
victions, by empty honors to their bones. We shall raise 
high the monument, and trumpet loud their deeds, but it 
will be all in vain. It cannot warm the hearts which sh'.ill 
have sunk cold and comfortless to the earth. This is no 
illusion. How often do we see, in our pubhc gazettes, a 
pompous display of honors to the memory of some veteran 
patriot, who was sufl'ered to linger out his latter days in 
unregarded penury ! 

' How proud we can press to the funeral array 
Of him whom we shunned in his sickness and sorrow 5 
And bailiffs may seize his last blanket to day, 
Whose pall shall be borne up by heroes tomorrow.' 

We are profuse in our expressions of gratitude to the 
Soldiers of the Revolution. We can speak long and loud 
in their praise, but when asked to bestow something sub- 
stantial upon them, we hesitate and falter. To them we 
owe every thing, even the soil which we tread, and the 
air of freedom which we breathe. Let us not turn them 
houseless from habitations which they have erected, and 
refuse them even a pittance from the exuberant fruits of 
their own labors. 



PHILLIPS'S SPEECH ON CIVIL LIBERTY, DELIVERED AT 
LIVERPOOL. 

How have the successive governments of England de- 
meaned themselves to a nation, offering such an accumu- 
lation of moral and political advantages ! See it in the 
state of Ireland at this instant ; in the universal bankrupt- 
cy that overwhelms her ; in the loss of her trade ; in the 
annihilation of her manufactures ; in the deluge of her 
debt ; in the divisions of her people ; in all the loathsome 
operations of an odious, monopolizing, hypocritical fanati- 
cism on the one hand, wrestling with the untired, but nat- 
ural reprisals of an irritated population on the other ! it 
required no common ingenuity to reduce such a country to 
such a situation. But it has been done ; man has con- 
quered the beneficence of the Deity ; his harpy touch has 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 185 

changed the viands to corruption ; and that land, which 
you might have possessed in health, and wealth, and vigor, 
to support you in your hour of need, now writhes in the 
agonies of death, unable even to lift the shroud with which 
famine and fatuity try to encumber her convulsion. This 
is what I see a pensioned press denominates tt'unquillity. 
Oh, wo to the land threatened with such tranquillity ; 
solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant ; it is not yet the 
tranquillity of solitude ; it is not yet the tranquillity of 
death ; but if you would know what it is, go forth in 
the silence of creation, when every wind is hushed, and 
every echo mute, and all nature seems to listen in dumb 
and terrified and breathless expectation, — go forth in such 
an hour, and see the terrible tranquillity by which you are 
surrounded ! How could it be otherwise ; when for ages 
upon ages invention has fatigued itself with expedients for 
irritation ; when the property of the native was but an in- 
vitation to plunder, and his non-acquiescence the signal 
for confiscation ; when religion itself was made the odious 
pretence for every persecution, and the fires of hell were 
alternately lighted with the cross, and quenched in the 
blood of its defenceless followers ! I speak of times that 
are passed : but can their recollections, can their conse- 
quences be so readily eradicated. Why, however, should 
I refer to periods that are so distant .'' Behold at this in- 
stant, five millions of her people disqualified on account of 
their faith, and that by a country professing freedom ! and 
that under a government calling itself Christian ! You, 
(when I say i/ou, of course I mean, not the high-minded 
people of England, but the men who misgovern us both,) 
seem to have taken out a roving commission in search of 
grievances abroad, whilst you overlook the calamities at 
your own door, and of your own infliction. You traverse 
the ocean to emancipate the African ; you cross the line to 
convert the Hindoo ; you hurl your thunder against the sav- 
age Algerine ; but your own brethren at home, who speak 
the same tongue, acknowledge the same king, and kneel 
to the same God, cannot get one visit from your itinerant 
humanity ! Oh, such a system is almost too abominable for a 
name ; it is a monster of impiety, impolicy, ingratitude, and 
injustice ! The pagan nations of antiquity, scarcely acted 
on such barbarous principles. Look to ancient Rome, 
16 # 



186 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

with her sword in one hand and her constitution in the 
other, heahng the injuries of conquest with the embrace 
of brotherhood, and wisely converting the captive into the 
citizen. Look to her great enemy, the glorious Cartha- 
ginian, at the foot of the Alps, ranging his prisoners round 
him, and by the politic option of cs^tivity or arms, recruit- 
ing his legions with the very men whom he had literally 
conquered into gratitude ! They laid their foundations 
deep in the human heart, and their success was proportion- 
ate to their policy. You complain of the violence of the 
Irish Catholic : Can you wonder he is violent ? It is the 
consequence of your own infliction — 

' The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, 
The blood will follow where the knife is driven.' 

Your friendship has been to him worse than hostility ; he 
feels its embrace but by the pressure of his fetters ! I am 
only amazed he is not more violent. He fills your exche- 
quer, he fights your battles, he feeds your clergy from 
whom he derives no benefit, he shares your burdens, he 
shares your perils, he shares every thing except your priv- 
ileges, can you wonder he is violent ? IS! o matter what his 
merit, no matter what his claims, no matter what his ser- 
vices ; he sees himself a nominal subject, and a real 
slave ; and his children, the heirs, perhaps of his toils, 
perhaps of his talents, certainly of his disqualifications — 
can you ivonder he is violent ? He sees every pretended 
obstacle to his emancipation vanished ; Catholic Europe 
your ally, the Bourbon oil the throne, the Emperor a cap- 
tive, the Pope a friend, the aspersions on his faith disprov- 
ed by his allegiance to you against, alternately, every 
Catholic potentate in Christendom, and he feels himself 
branded with hereditary degradation — can you wonder, ihenj 
that he is violent ?^ He petitioned humbly ; his tameness 
was construed into a proof of apathy. He petitioned 
boldly ; his remonstrance was considered as an impudent 
audacity^ He petitioned in peace ; he was told it was n/)t 
the time. He jpetitioned in war, he was told it was not the 
time. A strange interval, a prodigy in politics, a pause 
between peace and war, which appeared to be just made 
for him, arose ; I allude to the period between the retreat 
of Louis and the restoration of Bonaparte ; he petitioned 



THE NEW SPEAKER I8T 

then, and he was told it was not the time. Oh, shame, 
shame ! shame ! I hope he will petition no more to a par- 
liament so equivocating. However, I am not sorry they 
did so equivocate, because I think they have suggested 
one common remedy for the grievances of both countries^, 
and that remedy is, a reform of that parliament. 



SECOND EXTRACT FROM THE SAME, 

Without a reform of parliament, I plainly see, there is 
no hope for Ireland, ther^ is no salvation for England ; 
they will act towards you as they have done towards us ; 
they will admit your reasoning, they will admire your elo- 
quence, and they will prove their sincerity by a strict per- 
severance in the impohcy you have exposed, and the 
profligacy you have deprecated. Look to England at this 
moment. To what a state have they not reduced her ! 
Over this vast island, for whose wealth the winds of 
heaven seemed to blow, covered as she once was v/ith 
the gorgeous mantle of successful agriculture, all studded 
over with the gems of art and manufacture, there is now 
scarce an object but industry in rags, and patience in de- 
spair ; the merchant without a ledger, the fields without a 
harvest, the shops without a customer, the exchange de- 
serted, and the gazettes crowded, form the most heart 
rending comments on that nefarious system, in support of 
which, peers and contractors, stock-jobbers and sinecur- 
ists, in short, the whole trained, collared, pampered, and 
rapacious pack of ministerial beagles, have been, for half 
a century, in the most clamorous and discordant uproar ! 
During all this misery, how are the pilots of the state em- 
ployed ? Why, in feeding the bloated mammoth of sine- 
cure ! in weighing the farthings of some underling's sala- 
ry ! in preparing Ireland for a garrison, and England for 
a poor-house 1 in the structure of Chinese palaces !' the 
decoration of dragoons, and the erection of public build- 
ings ! ! ! Oh, it is easily seen we have a saint in the ex- 
chequer ! he has studied Scfiptuve to seme purpose ! the 
famishing people cry out for bread, and the scriptural min- 
ister gives them stones ! Such has been the resalt of the 



188 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

blessed Pitt system^ which, amid oceans of blood, and 
eight hundred millions expenditure, has left you, after all 
your victories, a triumphant dupe, a trophied bankrupt. I. 
have heard before of states ruined by the visitations of 
Providence, devastated by famine, wasted by fire, over- 
come by enemies ; but never until now did I see a :-tate 
like England, impoverished by her spoils, and conquered 
by her successes ! She has fought the fight of Europe ; 
she has purchased al! its coinable blood ; she has subsidiz- 
ed all its dependencies in their own cause ; she has con- 
quered by sea, she has conquered by land ; she has got 
peace, and, of course, or the Pitt apostles would not have 
made peace, she has got her ' indemnity for the past, and 
security for the future,' and here she is, after all her vani- 
ty and all her victories, surrounded by desolation, like one 
of the pyramids of Egypt ; amid the grandeur of the des- 
ert, full of magnificence and death, at once atrophy and a 
tomb ! The heart of any reflecting man must burn within 
him, when he thinks that the war thus sanguinary in its 
operations, and confessedly ruinous in its expenditure, was 
even still more odious in its principle ! It was a war 
avowedly undertaken for the purpose of torcing France 
out of her undoubted right of choosing her own monarch ; 
a war which uprooted the very foundation of the English 
constitution ; which libelled the most glorious era in our 
national annals ; which declared tyranny eternal, and aa- 
nounced to the people, amid the thunder of artillery, that, 
no matter how aggrieved, their only allowable attitude was 
that of supplication ; which, when it told the French re- 
former of 1 793, that his defeat was just, told the British 
reformer of 1688, his triumph was treason, and exhibited 
to history, the terrific farce of a prince of the house of 
Brunswick, the creature of the Revolution, offering a 

HUMAN HECATOMB UPON THE GRAVE OF JaMES THE SEC- 
OND ! ! 



THIRD EXTRACT FROM THE SAME. 

You have succeeded in dethroning Napoleon, and you 
have del^hroned a monarch, who, with all his imputed 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 189 

crimes and vices, shed a splendor around royalty, too 
powerful for the feeble vision of legitimacy even to bear. 
He had many faults ; I do not seek to palliate them. He 
deserted his principles, and I rejoice that he has suffered. 
But still let us be generous even in our enmities. How 
grand was his march ! How magnificent his destiny ! Say 
v/hat we will, Sir, he will be the landmark of our times in 
the eye of posterity. The goal of other men's speed was 
his starting-post ; crowns were his playthings, thrones his 
footstool ; he strode from victory to victory ; his path was 
' a plane of continued elevations.' Surpassing the boast 
of the too confident Roman, he but stamped upon the 
earth, and not only armed men, but states and dynasties, 
and arts and sciences, all that mind could imagine, or in- 
dustry produce, started up, the creation of enchantment. 
He has fallen — as the late Mr. Whitebread said, ^ you 
made him and he unmade himself — his own ambition was 
his glorious conqueror. He attempted, -with a sublime 
audacity, to grasp the fires of Heaven, and his heathen 
retribution has been the vulture and the rock ! ! I do not 
ask what you have gained by it, because, in place of 
gaining any tljing, you are infinitely worse than when you 
commenced the contest ! But what have you done for 
Europe .'' What have ,you achieved for man ? Have 
morals been ameliorated .'' Has liberty been strengthen- 
ed ! Has any one improvement in politics or philosophy 
been produced ? Let us see how. You have restored ta 
Portugal a prince of whom we know nothing, except that, 
when his dominions were invaded, his people distracted, 
his crown in danger, and all that could interest the highest 
energies of man at issue, he left his cause to be combated 
by foreign bayonets, and fled with a dastard precipitation 
to the shameful security of a distant hemisphere ! You 
have restored to Spain a wretch of even worse than pro- 
verbial princely ingratitude 5 who filled his dungeons, and 
fed his rack with the heroic remnant that braved war, and 
famin«, and massacre beneath his banners ; who rewarded 
patriotism with the prison, fidelity with the torture, heroism 
with the scaffold, and piety with the inquisition ; whose 
royalty was published by the signature of his death war- 
rants, and whose religion evaporated in the embroidenng 
of petticoats for the Blessed Virgin ! You have forced upon 



lao THE NEW SPEAKER. 

France a family to whom misfortune could teach no mer- 
cy, nor experience wisdom ; vindictive in prosperity, servile 
in defeat, timid in the field, vacillating in the cabinet ; 
suspicion amongst themselves, discontent amongst their fol- 
lowers ; their memories tenacious but of the punishments 
they had provoked, their piety active but in subserviency to 
their priesthood, and their power passive except in the sub- 
jugation of their people ! Such are the dynasties you have 
conferred on Europe. In the very act, that of enthroning 
three individuals of the same family, you have committed 
in politics a capital error ; but Providence has counter- 
mined the ruin you were preparing ; and whilst the impoli- 
cy presents the chance, their impotency precludes the 
danger of a coalition. As to the rest of Europe, how has 
it been ameliorated ? What solitary benefit have the ^ de- 
liverers ' conferred ? They have partitioned the states of 
the feeble to feed the rapacity of the powerful ; and after 
having alternately adored and deserted Napoleon, they 
have wreaked their vengeance on the noble, but unfortu- 
nate fidelity that spurned their example. Monster op 
LEGITIMACY, this is thy consummation ! ! ! The past is out 
of our power ; it is high time to provide against the future. 
Retrenchment and reform are now become not only expe- 
dient for our prosperity, but necessary to our very exist- 
ence. 

We live in times when the slightest remonstrance 
should command attention, when the minutest speck that 
merely dots the edge of the political horizon, may be the 
car of the approaching spirit of the storm ! Oh ! these 
are times whose omen no fancied security can avert ; 
times of the most awful and portentous admonition. Es- 
tablishments the most solid, thrones the most ancient, coa- 
litions the most powerful, have crumbled before our eyes ; 
and the creature of a moment robed, and crowned, and 
sceptred, raised his fairy creation on their ruins ! The 
warning has been given ; may it not have been given in 
vain ! 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 191 

EXTRACT FROM o'cONNOR's SPEECH IN EHE IRISH HOUSE OF 
COMMONS IN FAVOR OF THE CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 
1795. 

I HERE avow myself the zealous and earnest advocate 
for the most unqualified emancipation of my Catholic coun- 
trymen. It is for this great object I have, I fear, more 
than risked connexions dearer to me than life itself. But 
he must be a spiritless man, and this a spiritless nation, 
not to resent the baseness of a British minister, who has 
raised our hopes, in order to seduce a rival to share with 
him the disgrace of this accursed political crusade, and 
blasted them afterwards, that he may degrade a competi- 
tor to the station of a dependent. That he may destroy 
friendship which his nature never knew, he has sported 
with the feelings of a whole nation, raising the cup v/ith 
one hand to the parched lip of expectancy, and dashing it 
to the earth with the other, in all the wantonness of insult, 
and with all the aggravation of contempt. 

I trust the people of England are too wise and too just 
to attempt to force measures upon us, which they would 
themselves reject with disdain. I trust they have not so 
soon forgotten* the lesson they so recently learned from 
America, which should serve as a lasting example to 
nations against employing force to subdue the spirit of a 
people, determined to be free. 

Do not imagine that the minds of your countrymen have 
been stationary, while that of all Europe has been rapid- 
ly progressive ; for you must be blind not to perceive, that 
the whole European mind has undergone a revolution, 
neither confined to this nor to that country ; but as general 
as the great causes which have given it birth, and still con- 
tinue to feed its growth. In vain do these men, who sub- 
sist but On the abuses of the government under which they 
live, flatter themselves, that what we have seen these last 
six years is but the fever of the moment, which will pass 
away as soon as the patient has been let blood enough. 

As well may they attempt to alter the course of nature, 
without altering her laws. If they would effect a counter 
revolution in the European mind, they must destroy com- 
merce and its effects ; they must abolish every trace of the 
mariner's compass ; ^they must consign every book to the 



192 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

flames ; they must obliterate every vestige of the invention 
of the press ; they must destroy the conduit of intelligence, 
by destroying the institution of the post office. Then, and 
not till then, they and their abuses may live on, in all the 
security which ignorance, superstition, and want of con- 
cert in the people can bestow. 

But while I would overwhelm with despair those men 
who have been nursed in the lap of venality and prostitu- 
tion ; who have been educated in contempt and ridicule of 
a love for their country ; and 'who have grown grey in 
scoffing at every thing like public spirit, let me congratu- 
late every true friend to mankind, that that commerce, 
which has begotten so much independence, will continue 
to beget more ; and let me congratulate every friend to the 
human species, that the press, which has sent such a mass 
of information into the world, will continue, with accelerated 
rapidity, to pour forth its treasures so beneficial to man- 
kind. 

It is to these great causes we are ind-ebted, that the 
combination of priests and despots, which so long tyran- 
nized over the civil and political liberty of Europe, has 
been dissolved. It is to these great causes we are indebt- 
ed, that no priest, be his religion what it may, dares preach 
the doctrine which inculcates the necessity of sacrificing 
every right and every blessing this world can afford, as the 
only means of obtaining eternal happiness in the life to come. 

This was the doctrine by which the despotism of Europe 
was so long supported ; this was the doctrine by which the 
political popery of Europe was supported ; but the doctrine 
and the despotism may now sleep in the same grave, until 
the trumpet of ignorance, superstition, and bigotry, shall 
sound their resurrection. 



EXTRACT FROM THE INTELLECTUAL PATRIMONY. — ^GILCHRIST. 

Liberty and exertion, slavery and ind(>lence, are insepa- 
rably connected. They have mutual influence as alter- 
nate cause and effect. Slavery, as abundantly appears 
from the history of all ages and all countries, is a vis iner- 
tice, a kind of moral gravitation, by which man is constant- 
ly weighed down to the centre of debasement, and cofl^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 193 

stantly tending to become a motionless lump of mere mat- 
ter. The industrious Britons have still a native buoyancy 
of character, which enables them to rise above the tide of 
<jorruption and oppression — ^the ocean of ruin which rolls 
round them. There is in the British people a principle of 
motion which the hand of arbitrary power can hardly cheeky 
but, if they shall at last be completely put under the yoke 
of military despotism, soon shall you see them, lilie Turks 
and Spaniards, languishing in sluggish inertness and sense- 
less stupidity ; — soon shall you see a weak, spiritless pop- 
ulation of ragged, squalid, meagre starvlings, picking up 
the crumbs which remain from the beastly banquet of lazy 
lordlings ;— you shall see — no — let me hope that you will 
not endure the sight, and that you may flee from the de- 
voted country of murdered liberty ; for I should deem it 
noble in you to perish in attempting to swim the Atlantic 
rather than submit to bondage. 

I have many fears and forebodings. I see a storm of ar- 
bitrary power risieg around the political horizon, which, if 
not dispelled, will wreck our hopes, sweep away all our 
liberties, and desolate our land. I see causes of ruin in 
active operation, which, if not speedily checked, will trans- 
form our countrymen into the likeness of those miserable 
beings who are sprinkled over Egypt, Greece, and Italy. 
The agents of the mighty mischief are not aware of its ex- 
tent and catastrophe, but the bad counsels and bungling 
expedients of weak talents are always the most fatal. If 
this charitable imputation of ignorance be erroneous ; if 
they really have political sagacity to foreknow the catas- 
trophe of the tragedy in which they are acting, they are po- 
litical monsters for whom language supplies no appro- 
priate execration. 

I am no political prophet, but I will risk the credibility 
of my sagacity upon the event of a prediction : — Europe 
will either become free, or she will be prostrated at the 
iron feet of the crudest tyranny that ever trampled onjtis- 
tice and humanity. Middle courses and mild despotisms 
will no longer do. The old man of the wood must resume 
his savage vigor ; the axe of the executioner must reek with 
frequent sacrifice to the moloch of power in the sight of 
the people ; the chains of authority must incessantly clank 
in their ears ; and the Janizaries, those brave fellows, who 
17 



1^4 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

are covered with glory, and embroidered with emblems of 
triumph over liberty ; — who are paid and sworn, on pain of 
being shot, to be true to glorious despotism ;— who are al- 
ways kept together by themselves, like a pack of blood- 
hounds in the kennel of Nimrod ; — who are night and day 
encamped around the defenceless people, that are as sheep 
herded by wolves and royal tigers, and if they but bleat, it 
is a signal for slaughter ; — The Janizaries must not suffer 
the sabre to rust in the scabbard, but keep it gloriously 
bright with active service, or splendidly arrayed in the 
royal purple of human blood. When you shall see military 
despotism standing like a huge pyramid over the grave of 
liberty, in the midst of desolation, — think not of residing in 
Europe, — flee with the wings of the wind to the land of lib- 
erty beyond the Atlantic. 



EXTRACT FROM PEVERIL OF THE PEAK. SCOTT. 

But you heard not how that disaster befell me, — I would 
have held out that island against the knaves as long as the 
sea continued to flow around it. Till the shoals which sur- 
round it had become safe anchorage — till its precipices had 
melted with the sunshine — till of all its strong abodes and 
castles not one stone remained upon another, would I have 
defended against these villanous hypocritical rebels, my 
dear husband's hereditary dominion. The little kingdom 
of Man should have been yielded only when not an arm 
was left to wield a sword, not a finger to draw a trigger in 
its defence. But treachery did what force could never 
have done. When we iiad foiled various attempts upon 
the island by open force — treason accomplished what Blake 
and Lawson, with their floating castles, had found an enter- 
prise too hazardous — a base rebel, whom we had nursed in 
our own bosoms, betrayed us to the enemy. This wretch 
was named Christian. 

This Christian, had eaten of my lord his sovereign's bread, 
and drank of his cup, even from childhood — for his fathers 
had been faithful servants to the house of Man and Derby. 
He himself had fought bravely by my husband's side, and 
enjoyed all his confidence j and when he was martyred by 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 1^5 

the rebels, he recommended to me, amongst other instruc- 
tions communicated in the last message I received from him, 
to continue my confidence in Christian's fideUty. I obeyed, 
although I never loved the man. He was cold and phleg- 
matic, and utterly devoid of that sacred fire which is the in- 
incentive to noble deeds, suspected too of leaning to the 
cold metaphysics of Calvinistic subtlety. But he was brave, 
wise, and experienced, and, as the event proved, possess- 
ed but too much interest with the islanders. When these 
rude people saw themselves without hope of relief, and 
pressed by a blockade, which brought want and disease 
into their island, they began to fall off from the faith which 
they had hitherto shown. 

Do not blame them, the rude herd acted but according 
to their kind — in present distress they forgot former bene- 
fits, and nursed in their earthen hovels, with spirits suited 
to their dwellings, they were incapable of feeling the glory 
which is attached to constancy in suffering. But, that Chris- 
tian should have headed their revolt — that he, born a gen- 
tleman, and bred under my murdered Derby's own care, 
in all that was chivalrous and noble — that he should have 
forgot a hundred benefits — why do I talk of benefits — that 
he should have forgotten that kindly intercourse which 
binds man to man far more than the reciprocity of obliga- 
tion — that h6 should have headed the ruffians who broke, 
suddenly into my apartment — immured me with my infants 
in one of my own castles, and assumed or usurped the ty- 
ranny of the island — that this should have been done by 
William Christian, my vassal, my servant, my friend, was 
a deed of ungrateful treachery, which even this age of 
treason will scarcely parallel ! 

For more than seven years I have endured strict captiv- 
ity, I was mdeed offered my liberty, and even some 
means of support, if I would have consented to leave the 
island, and pledge my word that I would not endeavour to 
repossess my son in his father's rights. But they little 
knew the princely house from which I spring — and as little 
the royal house of Stanley which I uphold, who hoped to 
humble Charlotte of Tremouille into so base a composition. 
I would rather have starved in the darkest and lowest 
vault of Ruffin castle, than have consented to aught which 
might diminish in one hair's breadth the right of my son 
over his father's sovereignty, 



196 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

They knew me better ; once at liberty, I had not beeit 
long \tithout the means of disturbing their usurpation, and 
Christian would have as soon uncaged a lioness to combat 
with her, as have given me the slightest power of return- 
ing to the contest with him. But time had liberty and re- 
venge in store. — I had still friends and partizans in the 
island, though they were compelled to give way to the 
storm. Even among the islanders at large, most had been 
disappointed in the effects which they expected from the 
change of power. They were loaded with exactions by 
their new masters, their privileges were abridged, and their 
immunities abolished, under pretext of reducing them ta 
the same condition with the other subjects of the pretend- 
ed republic. When the news arrived of the changes 
which were current in Britain, these sentiments were pri- 
vately communicated to me ; and a rising, effected as sud- 
denly and effectually as that which had made me a captive, 
placed me at liberty and in possession of the sovereignty 
of Man, as regent for my son, the youthful Earl of Derby. 

1 was no sooner placed in possession of my rightful 
power, than I ordered the doomster of the island to hold, 
upon the traitor, a high court of justice, with all the for- 
malities of the isle, as prescribed in its oldest records. 
The court was held in the open air, before the judges, and 
keys, seated upon chairs of the living rock — the criminal 
was heard at length in his own defence, which amounted 
to little more than those specious allegiances of public 
consideration, which are ever used to color the ugly front 
of treason. He was fully convicted of his crime, and he 
received the doom of a traitor. He passed from the 
judgement-seat to the place of execution, with no farther 
delay than might be necessary for his soul's sake. He 
was shot to death in the court-yard of Peel-Castle, by it 
file of musketeers. 

His death was firm and manly, becommg the general 
tenor of his life, which, but for that gross act of traitorous 
ingratitude, had been fair and honorable. But what of 
that ? The hypocrite is a saint, and the false traitor a 
man of honor, till opportunity, that faithful touchstone, 
proves their metal to be base. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 197 

Extract from a legend of montrose. — scott. 

Know ye the knight of Ardenvohr ? Then let him know 
one claims his intercession, who is his worst foe and best 
friend. Craven Saxon, tell him I am the raven that fifteen 
years since stooped on his tower of strength and the pledg- 
es he had left there — I am the wolf that found out his den 
on the rock, and destroyed his offspring — I am the leader 
of the band which surprised Ardenvohr, yesterday was fif- 
teen years, and gave his four children to the sword. 

We ascended the cliffs by ladders of ropes, drawn up by 
an accomplice and clansman, who had served six months 
in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. 
The owl whooped around us. as we b.ung betwixt heaven 
and earth ; the tide roared against the foot of the rock, and 
dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man's heart failed him. 
In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there 
had been peace' and joy at the sunset. 

We were attacked by Sir Duncan, and my brother was 
slain — his head was withering on the battlements which we 
scaled— I vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have never 
broken. 

Yet hearken, stranger. Sir Duncan of Ardenvohr had 
f@ur children. Three died under our dirks, but the fourth 
survives ; and more would he give to dandle on his knee 
the fourth child which remains, than to rack these old 
bones, which care little for the utmost of his wrath.^ One 
word, if I list to speak it, could turn his day of humiliation 
and fasting into a day of thankfulness and rejoicing and 
breaking of bread. Oh I know it by my own heart ! Dear- 
er to me is the child of Kenneth, who chaseth the butterfly 
on the banks of the Aven, than ten sons who are moulder- 
ing in earth, or are preyed on by the fowls of the air. 
They were my sons, stranger, whom you saw-yonder, — they 
were my sons ! — blood of my blood — bone of my bone ! — 
fieet of fooib — unerring in aim — unvanquished by foemen, 
till the sons of Diarmid overcame them by numbers ! Why 
do I wish to survive them ? The old trunk will feel less 
the rending up of its roots than it has felt the lopping off of 
its graceful boughs. But Kenneth must be trained to re- 
venge — the young eagle must learn from the old how to 
stoop on his foes. I will purchase for his sake my life and 
17* 



198 THE NEW SPEAltfilt. 

my freedom, by discovering my secret to the knight of Ar- 
denvohr. 



SECOND EXTHACT FROM A LEGEND OP MONTROSE. SCOTT. 

Kenneth, said the old outlaw, hear the last words of 
the sire of thy father. A Saxon soldier, and Allan of the 
Red-hand, left this camp within these few hours, to travel 
to the country of Caber-foe. Pursue them as the blood- 
hound pursues the hurt deer — swim the lake — climb the 
mountain — thread the forest — tarry not until you join them. 
— ^They will ask thee news from the camp — say to them 
that Annot Lyle of the Harp is discovered to be the daugh- 
ter of Duncan of Ardenvohr ; that the thane of Menteith is 
to wed her before the priest ; and that you are sent to bid 
guests to the bridal. Tarry not their answer, but vanish 
like the lightning when the black cloud swallows it. And 
now depart, beloved son of my best beloved ! I shall nev- 
er more see thy face, nor hear the light sound of thy foot-^ 
step — yet tarry an instant and hear my last charge — re- 
member the fate of our race, and quit not the ancient man- 
ners of the children of the Mist. We are now a strag- 
gling handful, driven from every vale by the sword of eve- 
ry clan, who rule in the possessions where their forefath- 
ers hewed the wood, and drew the water to ours. But in 
the thicket of the wilderness, and in the mist of the moun- 
tain, Kennetlt, son of Erorcht, keep thou unsoiledthe free- 
dom which I leave thee as a birthright. Barter it not, 
neither for th-e rich garment, nor for the stone roof, nor 
fofif the covered board, nor for the couch of down — on the 
rock or in the valley, in abundance or in famine — 'in leafy 
summer and in the days of the iron winter — Son of the 
Mist ! be as free as thy forefathers. 

Own no lord — receive no law— take no hire — give no 
stipend — ^build fio hut — enclose no pasture — sow no grain ^ 
— -let the deer of the mountain be thy flocks and herds — if 
these fail thee, prey upon the goods of our oppressors — of 
the Saxons and of the Gael who are Saxons in their souls, 
valuing herds and flocks more than honor and freedom. 
Well for us that they do so — it affords the broader scope 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 199 

for our revenge. Remember those who have done kind- 
ness to our race, and pay their services with thy blood, 
should the hour require it. If a Mac Ian shall come to 
thee with the head of the king's son in his hand, shelter 
him, though the avenging army of the father were behind 
him ; for in Glencoe and Ardnamurchan, we have dwelt in 
peace in the years that have gone by. The sons of Diar- 
mid — the race of Darnlinvarach — the riders ofMenteith — 
my curse on thy head, Child of the Mist, if thou spare one 
of those names, when the time shall offer for cutting theni 
off ! and it will come anon, for their own swords shall de- 
vour each other, and those who are sceittered shall fly to 
th^ Mist, and perish by its children —Once more, begone 
— shake the dust from thy feet against the habitations of 
men, whether banded together for peace or for war — Fare- 
well, beloved ! and mayst thou die like thy forefathers, 
ere infirmity, disease, or age shall break thy spirit — begone,^ 
begone ! — live free—requite kindness — avenge the inju- 
ries of thy race. 



ADDRESS OF RICHARD CCEUR DE LION TO THE ASSEMBLED 
CHIEFS OF THE CRUSADING ARMY IN PALESTINE. SCOTT. 

And is it even so } And are our brethren at such pains 
to note the infirmities of our natural temper, and the rough 
precipitance of our zeal, which may sometimes have urged 
us to issue commands when there was little time to hold 
council ? I could not have thought that offences, casual 
and unpremeditated like mine, could find such deep root 
the hearts of my allies in this most holy cause, — that, for 
my sake, they should withdraw their hand from the plough 
when the furrow was near the end ; for my sake, turn 
aside from the direct path to Jerusalem, which their swords 
have opened. I vainly thought that my small services 
might hav£! outweighed my rash errors ; that if it were re- 
membered that I pressed to the van in an assault, it would 
not be forgotten that I was ever the last in the retreat ; that 
if I elevated my banner upon conquered fields of battle, it 
was all the advantage that I sought, while others were di- 
viding the spoil. I may have called the conquered city by 



SCO THE NEW SPEAKER. 

my name, but it was to others that I yielded the dominiori. 
If I have been headstrong in urging bold counsels, I have 
not, methinks, spared my own blood or my people's in car- 
rying them into as bold execution ; or if I have in the hur- 
ry of march or battle, assumed a command over the soldiers 
of others, such have been ever treated as my own, when my 
wealth purchased the provisions and medicines which their 
own sovereigns coilld not procure. 

But it shames me to remind you of what all but myself 
seem to have forgotten. Let us rather look forward to our 
future measures ; and believe me, brethren, you shall not 
find the pride, or the wrath, or the ambition of Richard a 
stumbling-block of offence in the path to which religion and 
glory summon you, as with the trumpet of an Archangel. 
Oh, no, no ! never would I survive the thought, that my 
frailties and infirmities had been the means to sever this 
goodly fellowship of assembled princes. I would cut off 
my left hand with my right, could my doing so attest my 
sincerity. I will yield up, voluntarily, all right to com- 
mand in the host, even my own liege subjects. They 
shall be led by such sovereigns as you may nominate, and 
their king, ever but too apt to exchange the leader's baton 
for the adventurer's lance, will serve under the banner of 
Beau Seant among the Templars ; ay, or unc^^-^.r that of 
Austria, if Austria v/ill name a brave man to lead his forces. 
Or, if ye are yourselves a- weary of this war, and feel your 
armor chafe your tender bodies, leave but with Richard 
some ten or fifteen thousand of your soldiers, to work out 
the accomplishment of your vow, and when Zion is won, 
we will write upon her gates not the names of Richard 
Plantagenet, but o^ those generous princes who intrusted 
him with the means of conq^uest. 



PART SECOND. 



DRAMATIC PIECES. 



OTHELLO AND lAGO.-^SHAKSPEARE. 

lago. My noble lord 

0th. What dost thou say, lago ? 

lago. Did Michael Cassio, when you wooed my Lady^ 
Know of your love ? 

0th. He did from first to last : why dost thou ask ? 

lago. But for a satisfaction of my thought, 
No farther harm. 

0th. Why of thy thought, lago ^ 

lago. I did not think he'd been acquainted with it. 

0th. O yes, and went between us very oft. 

lago. Indeed ! 

0th. Indeed ! ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught in 
that ? 
Is he not honest ? 

lago. Honest, my lord ? 

0th. Honest ! ay, honest. 

lago. My lord, for aught I know. 

0th. What dost thou think } 

lago. Think, my lord ! 

0th. Think ! my lord ! Why, by Heav'n, thou echo'st 
me, 
As if there were some monster in thy thought 
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something : 

I heard thee say but now, ^ thou lik'dst not that,' 

When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like ? 
And when I told thee, he was of my counsel, 



202 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, ^ Indeed !' 
And didst contract and purse thy brow together, 
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain 
Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, 
Show me thy thought. 

lago. My lord, you know I love you. 

0th. I think thou dost : 
And, for I know thou art full of love and honesty. 
And weigh'st thy words before thou giv'st them breath, 
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more : 
For such things, in a false, disloyal knave. 
Are tricks of custom ; but in a man that 'sjust, 
They 're cold dilations working from the heart, 
That passion cannot rule. 

lago. For Michael Cassio, 
I dare be sworn, I think that he is honest. 

0th. I think so too. 

lago. Men should be what they seem ; 
Or, those that be not, would they might seem knaves. 

Oih. Certain, men should be what they seem. 

lago. Why, then I think Cassio 's an honest man. 

0th. Nay, yet there 's more in this : 
I pray thee speak to me as to thy thinkings ; 
As thou dost ruminate ; and give thy worst of thoughts 
The worst of words. 

lago. Good, my lord, pardon me ; 
Though I am bound to every act of duty, 
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to. 
Utter my thoughts ! — Why, say they are vile and false ; 
As where 's that-- palace, whereinto foul things 
Sometimes intrude not ? Who has a breast so pure 
But some uncleanly apprehensions 
Keep leets and law-days, and in sessions sit 
With meditations lawful ? 

0th. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, lago, 
If thou but think'st him wronged, and mak'st his ear 
A stranger to thy thoughts. 

lago. I do beseech you. 
Think I perchance, am vicious in my guess, 
(As, I confess, it is my nature's plague 
To spy into abuse ; and oft my jealousy 
Shapes faults that are not,) I entreat you then, 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 203 

From one who so imperfectly conjects, 
Your wisdom would not build yourself a trouble 
Out of my scattering and unsure observance : 
It were not for your quiet, nor your good, 
Nor for my manhood, honesty, and wisdom, 
To let you know my thoughts. 

0th. What dost thou mean ? 

lago. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord. 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Who steals my purse, steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing; 
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands : 
But he that filches from me my good name, 
Robs me of that which not enriches him. 
And makes me poor indeed. 

0th. I '11 know thy thoughts. 

lago. You cannot if my heart were in your hand ; 
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody. 

0th. Ha! 

lago. Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy ! 
It is a green-eyed monster, which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on. 

0th. O misery ! 

lago. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough : 
But riches endless, is as poor as winter 
To him that ever fears he shall be poor. 
Good Heaven ! the souls of all my tribe defend 
From jealousy ! 

0th. Why, why is this ? 
Think'st thou I'd make a life of jealousy ? 
To follow still the changes of the moon 
With fresh suspicions ? — 'Tis not to make me jealous. 
To say, my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, 
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well : 
Where virtue is, these make more virtuous. 
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw 
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt ; 
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, lago, 
I'll see, before I doubt ; when I doubt, prove ; 
And, on the proof, there is no more but this. 
Away at once with love or jealousy. 

lago. I 'm glad of this ; for now I shall have reas«)n 
To show the love and duty that I bear you 



204 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

With franker spirit. Therefore, as I 'm bound, 
.Receive it from me. 

She did deceive her father, marrying you ; 
And when she seemed to shake, and fiear your looks, 
She lov'd them most. 

0th. And so she did. 

lago. Go to, then ; 
She that, so young, could give out such a seeming 

To seal her father's eyes up, close as oak 

He thought 'twas witchcraft — But I 'm much to blame : 
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon. 
For too much loving you. 

0th. I am bound to you for ever. 

lago. I see this hath a little dashed your spirits. 

0th. Not a jot ; not a jot. 

lago. I fear it has : 
I hope you will consider what is spoke 
Comes from my love. But I do see you 're moved — 
I am to pray you not to strain my speech 
To grosser issues, nor to larger reach, 
Than to suspicion. 

Olh. I will not. 

lago. Should you do so, my lord. 
My speech would fall into such vil^ excess, 
Which my thoughts aim not at. Cassio 's my worthy friend. 
My lord, I see you are moved 

0th. No, not much moved 

I do not think but Desdemona's honest. 

lago. Long live she so ! and long live you to think so ! 

0th. And yet, how Nature erring from itself 

lago. Ay, there 's the point ! — as (to be bold with you) 
Not to affect many proposed matches 
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree, 
Whereto we see in all things nature tends ; 
Fob ! one may smell, in such, a wall most rank. 
Foul disproportions, thoughts unnatural. 
But, pardon me, I do not in position 
Distinctly speak of her <» though I may fear. 
Her will, recoiling to her better judgement. 
May fail to match you with her country forms, 
And haply, so repent. 

0th. Farewell, farewell ; 



THE jyjEW SPEAKER. 205 

If more thou dost perceive, let me know more ; 
Set on thy wife t 'observe. Leave me, lago. 

lago. My lord, I tak« ray leave. [Going.'] 

0th. Why did I marry ? 

This honest creature, doubtless. 

Sees, and knows more, much more, than he unfolds. 

lago. My lord, I would I might entreat your Honor 
To scan this thing no farther ; leave it to time : 
Although 'tis fit that Cassio hav^ his place. 
For, sure, he fills it up with great ability ; 
Yet if you please to hold him off" awhile, 
You shall by that perceive him and his means. 
IVote, if your lady strain his entertainment 
With any strong or vehement importunity ; 
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time, 
Let me be thought too busy in my fears, 
(As worthy cause I have to fear I am,) 
And hold her free, I do beseech your Honor, 

0th. Fear not my government. 

lago. I once more take my leave. 



SCENE BETWEEN PRINCE HENRY AND FALSTAFF.-- 
SHAKSPEARE. 

P. Henry. Welcome, Jack. Where hast i^Iiou been ? 

Fal. A plague on all cowards, I say, and a vengeance 
too ! marry, and Amen ! — [_To an attendant.] Give me a 
cup of sack, boy. — Ere I lead this Hfe long, I '11 sew 
nethersocks, and mend them, and foo^ them too. A plague 
on all cowards : — Give me a cup of sack, rogue. — Is there 
uo virtue extant ? [Drains the cvf.] You rogue, here 's 
lime in this sack, too. There is nothing but roguery to 
be found in villanous man ! Yet a coward is worse than 
a cup of sack with lime in it ; a villanous coward. — Go thy 
ways, old Jack ; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good 
manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then 
am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men 
unhanged in England ; and one of them is fat, and grown 
old, — a bad world, I say ! A plague on all cowards, I say 
still i 

18 



206 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

P. Henry. How now, wool-sack ? what mutter you ? 

Fal. A king's son ! If I do not beat thee out of thy 
kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects 
afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I '11 never wear hair 
on my face more. You — prince of Wales ! 

P. Henry. Why, what's the matter ? 

Fal. Are you not a coward ? answer me to that. 

P. Henri/. Ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I 'II 
stab thee. 

Fal. I call thee coward ? I 'II see thee hanged ere I 
call thee coward : but I would give a thousand pound, I 
could run as fast as thou canst. You are strait enough in 
the shoulders, you care not who sees your back : Call you 
that, backing of your friends ? A plague upon such back- 
ing I give me them that will face me. — Give -me a cup of 
sack : — I am a rogue, if I have drunk to-day. 

P. Henry. O villain ! thy lips are scarce wiped since 
thou drank'st last. 

Fal. All 's one for that. \_He drinks.'] A plague on all 
cowards, still say I ! 

P. Henry. What 's the matter } 

Fal. What's the matter ? here be four of us have taken 
a thousand pound this morning. 

P. Henry. Where is it. Jack ? where is it .'* 

Fat. Where is it ^ taken from us, it is : a hundred upon 
poor four of us. 

P. Henry, What, a hundred, man ? 

Fal. I am a togue, if I were not at half sword with a 
dozen of them two hours together. T have escaped by 
miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet : 
four through the ho^e ; my buckler cut through and 
through ; my sword hacked like a handsaw, ecce signum. 
IShows his sivord.'] I never dealt better since I was a 
man : all would not do. A plague on all cowards ! — 

P. Henry. What, fought you with them all ? 

Fal. All ? I know not what ye call all ; but, if I fought 
not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish : if there 
were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then 
am I no two-legged creature. 

P. Hem^y. Pray heaven, you have not murdered some 
of them. 

Fal. Nay, that 's past praying for. I have peppered 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 207 

two of them : two I am sure, I have payed ; two rogues 
in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal ; if I tell thee a 
lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou know'st my old 
ward. [^Taking a position for fighting.^ — here I lay, and 
thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive 
at me — 

P. Henry. What, four ? thou saidst but two, even now.^ 

Fal. Four, Hal 5 I told thee four.— These four came all 
a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made no more ado, but 
took all their seven points in my target, thus. 

P. Henry. Seven ! why, there were but four, even now. 

Fal. In buckram. 

P. Henry. Ay, four in buckram suits. 

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. Dost 
thou hear me, Hal ? 

P. Hem^y. A-jy and mark thee too. Jack. 

Fal. Do so, for it is worth listening to. — These nine in 
buckram, that I told thee of 

P. Henry. So, two more already. 

Fal. Their points being broken, — began to give me 
ground : but I followed me close, came in foot and hand, 
and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid. 

P. Henry. O monstrous ! eleven buckram men grown 
out of two ! 

Fal. But, as ill-luck would have it, three misbegotten 
knaves, in Kendal green, came at my back, and let drive 
at me ; — for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see 
thy hand. 

P. Henry. These lies are like the father that begets 
them ; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou 
knotty-paled fool ; thou greasy tallow-tub. 

Fal. What, art thou mad .'' art thou mad .'' is not the truth 
the truth .? 

P. Henry. Why, how couldst thou know these men in 
Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see 
thy hand } Come, tell us your reason ; what say'st thou 
to this '^. Come, your reason. Jack, your reason. 

Fal. What, upon compulsion ? — No. Were I at the 
strappado, or ail the racks in the world, I would not tell 
you on compulsion. Give you a reason upon compul- 
sion ! If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would 
give no man a reason upon compulsion. 



m$ THE NEW SPEAKER. 

P. Henry. I '11 be no longer guilty of this sin. This 
sanguine coward, this bed presser, this horse back break- 
er, this huge hill of flesh — 

Fal. Away, you s'tarvling, you eel-skin, you dried 
neat's tongue, you stock-fish ! O for breath to utter what 
is like thee ! you taylor's yard, you sheath, you bow case, 
you vile standing tuck, 

P. Henry. Well, breathe awhile and then to 't again ; 
and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear 
me speak but this. — Poins and I saw you four set on four ; 
you bound them, and were masters of their wealth : mark 
now, how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we 
two set on you four, and with a word, outfaced you from 
your prize, and have it, yea, can show it you here in the 
house. And, FalstafF, you carried your paunch away as 
nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and 
still ran and roared, as ever I heard a bull-calf What a 
slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and 
then say it was in fight ? What trick, what device, what 
starting hole canst thou now find out, to hide thee from 
this open and apparent shame ? 

Fal. Ha ! ha ! ha ! — D'ye think I did not know you, Hal ? 
Why, hear ye, my master, was it for me to kill the heir 
apparent ? should I turn upon the true prince .'' why, thou 
knowest I am as valiant as Hercules. But beware in- 
stinct ; the lion will not touch the true prince ; instinct is 
a great matter. I was a coward on instinct, I grant you ; 
and I shall think the better of myself and thee during my 
life ; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But I 
am glad you have the money. Let us clap to the doors ; 
watch to-night, pray to-morrow. What ! shall we be mer- 
ry ? shall we have a play extempore ? 

P. Henry. Content ! and the argument shall be, thy 

running away. 

Fal. Ah ! — no mor€ of that, Hal, if thou lovest me. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 209^ 



SCENE FROM HENRY VI. GEORGE BEVIS AND JOHN. HOL- 
LAND. SHAKSPEARE. 

Bevis. Come and get thee a sword, thomgli . fiacide of a 
lath ; our enemies have b^en up these two days. 

Hoi. They have the more need to sleep now then.' 

Bevis. I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier, means to 
dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new aap 
upon it. 

Hoi. So he had need, for 'tis thread-bare.. Well, I say, 
it was never merry world in England, since gentlemen 
came up. 

Bevis. O miserable age ! Virtue is not regarded in han- 
dicraftsmen. 

Hoi. The nobility scorn to go in leather aprons. 

Bevis. Nay more, the king's council are no good work- 
men. 

Hoi. True ; and yet it is said, labor in thy vocation ; 
which is as much as to say, let the magistrates be laboring 
men ; and therefore should we be magistrates, 

Bevis. Thou hast hit it ; for there 's no better sign of a 
brave mind, than a hard hand. 

Hoi. I see them ! I see them ! There 's Best's son, the 
tanner, of Wingham. 

Bevis. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make 
dog's leather of 

Hoi. And Dick the butcher — 

Bevis. Then is sin struck down like an ox, and iniquity's 
throat cut like a calf 

Hoi. And Smith the weaver — 

Bevis. Argo, their thread of life is spun. 

Hoi. Come, come, let 's fall in with them. 

[Drum. Enter Cade, Hick, the butcher. Smith, the weav- 
er, and others.'] 

Cade. We, John Cade, so termed from our supposed 
father— — 

Dick, [aside.] Or rather, from stealing a cade of her- 
rings.* 

Cade. For our enemies shall fall before us,t inspired 

* That is, a barrel of herrings. 

t He alludes to his name Cade, from cado^ Latin, tojall. 

18* 



210 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

with the spirit of putting down kings and princes. Com' 
mand silence, 

Dick. Silence ! 

Cade. My father was a Mortimer — 

Dick, [aside.'] He was an honest man, and a good brick- 
layer. 

Cade. My mother was a Plantagenet — 

Dick. I knew her well. 

Cade. My wife descended of the Lacys — 

Dick, [aside.'} She was, indeed, a pedler's daughter, and 
sold many laces. 

Smith, [aside.] But now, of late, not able to travel with 
her furred pack, she washes bucks here at home. 

Cade. Therefore am I of an honorable house. 

Dick. Ay, by my faith, the field is honorable ; [aside] 
and there was he born, under a hedge ; for his father had 
never a house, but the cage. 

Cade. Valiant I am. 

Smith, [aside.] You must needs be ; for beggary is 
valiant. 

Cade. I am able to endure much. 

Dick. No question of that ; [aside] for I have seen him 
whipped three market days together. 

Cade. I fear neither sword or fire. 

Smith, [to Dick.] He need not fear the sword, for his 
coat is of proof 

Dick, [to Smith.] But, methinks, he sh»uld stand in fear 
of fire, being so often burnt in the hand for steahng 
sheep. 

Cade. Be brave then ; for your captain i& brave, and 
vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half- 
penny loaves sold for a penny ; the three-hooped pot shall 
have ten hoops ; and I will make it felony to drink small 
beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside 
shall my palfrey go to grass. And, when I am king, as king 
I will be 

Ml. God save your majesty ! 

Cade. I thank you, good people— There shall be no 
money ; all shall eat and drink upon my score ; and I will 
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like 
brothers. 

Dick. The first thing we do, let 's kill all the lawyers. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. mi 

Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable 
thing, that the skin of an innocent lamb should be made 
parchment ? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should 
undo a man ? Some say, the bee stings : but I say, 'tis 
the bee's wax ; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I 
was never my own man since. How now ? who is there ! 
\_Entej' one btinging in the clerk of Chatham. ~\ 

Smith. The clerk of Chatham ; he can write, and read, 
and cast accounts. 

Cade. O monstrous ! 

Smith. We took him setting of boy's copies. 

Cade. He 's a villain ! 

Smith.. He has a book in his pocket with red letters 
in't. 

Cade. Nay, then he 's a conjuror. 

Dick. Yea, he can make obligations, and write court 
hand. 

Cade. I am sorry for 't : the man is a proper man, on 
mine honor ; unless I find him guilty he shall not die. 
Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee : What is thy 
name ? 

Clerk. Emanuel 

Dick. 'T will go hard with you. 

Cade. Let me alone ; — Dost thou use to ivrite thy 
name } or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest, 
plain-dealing man ? 

Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought 
up, that I can write my name. 

Ml. He hath confessed : away with him 5 he 's a vil- 
lain, and a traitor. 

Cade. Away with him, I say : hang him with his pen 
and inkhorn about his neck. \_Exit with the clerk.^ 



SCENE FROM VENICE PRESERVED. JAFFIER AND PIERRE. 
OTWAY. 

Jaff. By Heaven, you stir not ! 
I must be heard, I must hav/e leave to speak ! 
Thou hast disgraced me, Pierre, by a vile blow ! 
Had not a dagger done thee nobler justice ? 



Sl^ THE NEW SPEAKER. 

But use me as thou wilt, thou canst not wrong me, 

For I am fallen beneath the basest injuries : 

Yet look upon me with an eye of mercy ; 

With pity and with charity behold me ; 

Shut not thy heart against a friend's repentance ! 

But, as there dwells a godlike nature in thee, 

Listen with mildness to my supplications. 

Pier. What whining monk art thou ? what holy cheat, 
That wouldst encroach upon my credulous ears. 
And cantest thus vilely ? hence ! I know thee not. 

Jaff. Not know me, Pierre ! 

Pier. No, know thee not ; what art thou ? 

Jaff. Jaffier, thy friend, thy once loved, valued friend ! 
Though now deservedly scorned, and used most hardly. 

Pier. Thou, Jaffier ! thou my once loved, valued friend I 
By Heaven thou liest ; the man so called my friend. 
Was generous, honest, faithful, just, and valiant ; 
Noble in mind, and in his person lovely ; 
Dear to my eyes, and tender to my heart : 
But thou, a wretched, base, false, worthless coward, 
Poor even in soul, and loathsome in thy aspect ; 
All eyes must shun thee, and all hearts detest thee. 
Prithee avoid, nor longer cling thus round me. 
Like something baneful, that my nature's chilled at. 

Jaff. I have not wronged thee ; by these tears I have not,- 
But still am honest, true, and hope too, valiant ; 
My mind still full of thee, therefore still noble. 
Let not thy eyes then shun me, nor thy heart 
Detest me utterly : Oh ! look upon me, 
Look back and see my sad, sincere, submission ! 
How my heart swells, as ee'n 'twould burst my bosom. 
Fond of its goal, and laboring to be at thee. 
Wlftit shall I do ? what say to make thee hear me .'' 

Pier. Has thou not wronged me ^ dar'st thou call thy- 
self 
That once beloved, valued friend of mine. 
And swear thou hast not wronged me ? Whence these 

chains ? 
Whence the vile death, which I may meet this moment .'' 
Whence this dishonor, but from thee, thou false one ? 

Jaff. All's true ; yet grant one thing ; and I 've done 
asking. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. SltS 

Pier. What 's that ? 

Jaff. To take thy life on such conditions 
The council have proposed : thou and thy friend 
May yet live long, and to be better treated. 

Pier. Life ! ask my life ! confess ! record myself 
A villain for the privilege to breathe, 
And carry up and down this cursed city 
A discontented and repining spirit, 
Burdensome to itself, a few years longer, 
To lose, it may be, at last in a lewd quarrel 
For some new friend, treacherous and false as thou art I 
No, this vile world and I have long been jangling. 
And cannot part on better terms than now. 
When only men like thee are fit to hve in't. 

Jaff.- By all that 's just 

Pier. Swear by some other powers, 
For thou hast broke that sacred oath too lately. 

Jaff'. Then by that hell I merit, I '11 not leave thee, 
Till to thyself, at least, thou 'rt reconciled. 
However thy resentment deal with me. 

Pier Not leave me ! 

Jaff. No ; thou shalt not force me from thee ! 
Use me reproachfully, and like a slave ; 
Tread on me, buffet me, heap wrongs on wrongs 
On my poor head ; I '11 bear it all with patience ; 
I '11 weary out thy most unfriendly cruelty ; 
Lie at thy feet and kiss them, though they spurn me. 
Till wounded by my sufferings thou relent, 
And raise me to thy arms with dear forgiveness. 

Pier. Art thou not 

Jaff What ? 

Pier. A traitor .'' • 

Jaff. Yes. 

Pier. A villain ? 

Jaff. Granted. 

Pier. A coward, a most scandalous coward, 
Spiritless, void of honor, one who has sold 
Thy everlasting fame for shameless life ? 

Jaff'. All, all, and more, much more : my faults are num« 
berless. 

Pier. And wouldst thou have me live on terms like? 
thine ? 



214 THE NEW SPEAKER. 
Base as thou 'rt false 



Jaff. No ; 't is to me that 's granted : 
The safety of thy life was all I aimed at, 
In recompense for faith and trust so broken. 

Pier. I scorn it more, because preserved by thee : 
And as when first my foolish heart took pity 
On thy misfortunes, sought thee in thy miseries. 
Relieved thy wants, and raised thee from the state 
Of wretchedness, in which thy fate had plunged thee, 
To rank thee in my list of noble friends ; 
All I received, in surety for thy truth. 
Were unregarded oaths, and this, this dagger. 
Given with a worthless pledge thou since hast stolen : 
So I restore it back to thee again ; 
Swearing by all those powers which thou hast violated, 
Never from this cursed hour to hold communion. 
Friendship, or interest with thee, though our years 
Were to exceed those limited the world. 
Take it farewell, for now I owe thee nothing. 

Jaff. Say thou wilt live then. 

Pier. For my life, dispose of it 
Just as thou wilt, because 'tis what I 'm tired with. 

Jaff. Oh, Pierre ! 

Pier. No more. 

Jaff. My eyes won't lose the sight of thee. 
But languish after thine, and ache with gazing. 

Pier. Leave me — Nay, then thus, thus, I throw thee 
from me : 
And curses, great as is thy falsehood, catch thee. 



SCENE FROM ^ THE MAN OF THE WORLD.' SIR PERTINAX 
MAC SYCOPHANT AND HIS SON EGERTON. MACKLIN. 

Sir P. Zounds, Sir, I will not hear a word about it. I 
insist upon it you were wrong. You should have paid 
your court to my lord, and not have scrupled swallowing 
a bumper or two, or twenty to oblige him. 

Egert. Sir, I did drink his toast in a bumper. 

Sir P. Yes, you did ; but how ? how ? — Just as a bairn 
takes physic, with aversion, and wry faces, which my lord 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 215^ 

observed — Then, to mend the matter, the moment that he 
and the Colonel got into a drunken dispute about religion, 
you slyly slunged away. 

Egert. I thought. Sir, it was time to go, when my lord 
insisted upon half pint bumpers. 

Sir P. That was not levelled at you, but at the Colonel, 
in order to try his bottom — but they all agreed that you 
and I should drink out of small glasses. 

Egert. But, Sir, I beg pardon — I did not choose to 
drink any more. 

Sir P. But zounds. Sir ! I tell you there was a necessi- 
ty for your drinking more. 

Egert. A necessity ! in what respect. Sir ? 

Sir P. Why, Sir, I have a certain point to carry, inde- 
pendent of the lawyers, with my lord, in this agreement 
of your marriage, about which I am afraid we shall have a 
warm squabble, and therefore I wanted your assistance 
in it. 

Egert. But how. Sir, could my drinking contribute to 
assist you in your squabble ? 

Sir P. Yes, Sir, it would have contributed, and greatly 
have contributed to assist me. 

Egert. How so, sir } 

Sir P. ]Vay, sir, it might have prevented the squabble 
entirely, for as my lord is proud of you for a son-in-law, 
and of your little French songs, your stories about the 
popes, and cardinals, and their mistresses, and your bon 
mots, when you are in the humor ; and if you had but 
staid and been a little jolly, and drank half a score of bum- 
pers with him, till he got a little tipsy, I am sure when we 
had him in that mood, we might have settled the point 
among ourselves before the lawyers came ; but now. 
Sir, I know not what will be the consequence. 

Egert. But, when a man is intoxicated, would that have 
been a seasonable time to settle business. Sir ? 

Sir P. The most seasonable — the most seasonable — for. 
Sir, when my lord is in his cups, his suspicion is asleep, and 
his heart is all jollity, fun, and good-fellowship — and Sir, 
can there be a happier moment than that for a bargain, or 
to settle a dispute with a friend ? What is that you shrug 
your shoulder at. Sir, and turn up your eyes to heaven, 
like a duck in thunder ? 



^16 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Egert. At my own ignorance, Sir — for I understand nei- 
ther the philosophy, nor the morality of your doctrine. 

Sir P. I know you do not, Sir — and, what is worse, you 
never will understand it, as long as you proceed — in one 
word, Charles, I have often told you, and again I tell you, 
once for all, that the manceuvres of pliability are as neces- 
sary to rise in the world, as wrangling and logical subtlety 
at the bar — why, you see, Sir, I have acquired a noble 
fortune — a princely fortune — and how do you think I rais- 
ed it ? 

Egert. Doubtless, Sir, by your abilities. 

Sir P. Doubtless, Sir, you are a blockhead — No, Sir, 
I '11 tell you how I raised it Sir — I raised it by booing — by 
booing. Sir — I never in my life could stand straight in the 
presence of a great man ; but was always booing, and 
booing, and booing — as — as if it were by instinct. 

Egert. How do you mean by instinct, Sir ? 

Sir P. How do I mean by instinct ? why, Sir, I mean . 
by — by — by the instinct of interest, Sir, which is the uni- 
versal instinct of mankind. Sir, it is wonderful to think what 
a cordial, what an amiable, nay, what an infallible influ- 
ence booing has upon the pride and vanity of human na- 
ture — Charles, answer me sincerely, — have you a mind to 
be convinced of the force of my doctrine by example, and 
demonstration ? 

Egert. Certainly, Sir. 

' Sir P. Then, Sir, as the greatest favor I can confer up- 
on you, I will give you a short sketch of the stages of my 
booing, as an excitement, and a landmark for you to boo 
by^ and as an infallible nostrum for a man of the world to 
thrive in the world. 

Egert. Sir, I shall be proud to profit by your experience. 

Sir P. Very well, Sir — sit you down, then. [Both sit.~\ 
And now. Sir, you must recal to your thoughts, that your 
grandfather was a man whose penurious income of cap- 
tain's half-pay Vi^as the sum total of his fortune ; "and. Sir, 
all my provision from him, was a medium of Latin, an ex- 
pertness at arithmetic, and a short system of worldly coun- 
sel, the chief ingredients of which were, a persevering in- 
dustry — a rigid economy — a smooth tongue — a pliability of 
temper — and a constant attention to make every great man 
well pleased with himself 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 21^ 

^gert. Very prudent conduct, Sir. 

Sir P. Therefore, Sir, I lay it befor^ you^^^Now, Sir, 
with these materials, I set out, a rough, rawboned stripling 
from the north, to try my fortune with them here in the 
south— and my first step inAo the world, was a beggarly 
clerkship in sawney Gordon's counting house, h^re in the 
city of London, which you '11 say afforded but a barren 
sort of a prospect. 

Egert. It was not a very fertile one, indeed^ Sir. 

Sir P. The reverse — the reverse — well, Sir, seeing my- 
self in this unprofitable situation, I reflected deeply. I cast 
about my thoughts, and concluded that a matrimonial ad- 
venture, prudently conducted, would be the readiest way I 
could go for the bettering of my condition, and according- 
ly I set about it. Now, Sir, in this pursuit — beauty- 
beauty, ah ! beauty ofl;en struck my eyes and played about 
my heart — ^^and fluttered, and beat, and knocked — but the 
devil an entrance I ever let it get — for I observed, that 
beauty is generally a proud, vain, saucy, expensive sort of 
commodity. 

Egert Very justly obsei'ved, Sir. 

Sir P. And therefore I left it for the prodigals and cox- 
combs, that <Jould afford to pay for it ; and, Sir, mark^ — I 
looked out for an ancient, well-jointured, superannuated 
<iowager — a consumptive, toothless, phthisical, wealthy 
widow — or a shrivelled, cadaverous, neglected piece of 
deformity, in the shape of an ezzard, or an ampersand — or 
in short, any thing — any thing that had the silver — the sil- 
ver — for that was the north star of my affection ; do you 
take me. Sir — ^was not that right ? 

Egert. O doubtless, doubtless, Sir. 

Sir P. Now, Sir, where do you think I went to look for 
this woman with the silver ? Not to court — not to play 
houses— 'not to assemblies- — No, Sir, X went to the kirk- — 
to the morning and evening service of churches and chap- 
els of ease— and to midnight, melting, conciliating lectures 
-^and there, at la^, Sir, f fell upon an old, rich, sour, 
slighted, antiquated, musty maiden. She was as tall as a 
grenadier, and so thin that she looked, ha, ha, ha, she look- 
ed— just like a skeletOR, in a surgeon's glass case — Now, 
Sir, this miserable object was religiously angry with her- 
self, and th€ worlds — ^and bad macomfoti but in strpernat- 
19 



' 218 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

ural visions and enthusiastic deliriums ; ha, ha, ha, Sir, she 
was mad as, mad as a bedlamite. 

Egert. Not impossible. Sir, — there are numbers of poor 
creatures in the same condition. 

Sir P. O numbers, numbers^ — now, Sir, this cracked 
creature used to pray, and sing, and sigh, and groan, weep, 
and wail, and gnash her teeth continually, morning and eve- 
ning, at the tabernacle in Moorfields, and as soon as I 
found she had the silver, a'ha — in good truth, I plump- 
ed me down upon my knees close by her, cheek by jowl, 
and prayed an^l sighed, and groaned, and gnashed my teeth 
as vehemently as she could do for the life of her — ay, and 
turned up the whites of my eyes till the strings cracked 
again — Well Sir, I watched her motions — handed her to a 
carriage — waited on her home — got most religiously inti- 
mate with her — in a week married her — in a fortnight buri- 
ed her — in a month touched the silver — and with a deep 
suit of mourning, a melancholy port, a sorrowful visage, 
and a joyful heart, I began the world again — and this. Sir, 
was the first ejffectual boo I ever made to the vanity of 
human nature. — Now, Sir, do you understand this doc- 
trine ? 

Egert. Perfectly well, Sir. 

Sir P. Ay, but was it not right ^ was it not ingenious, 
and well hit off ? 

Egert. Extremely well. Sir. 

Sir P. My next boo, Sir, was to your own mother, whom 
I ran away with from the boarding school — by the interest 
of whose family, I got a good smart place in the treasury — 
and, Sir, my very next step was into parliament — the 
which I entered with as ardent and as determined an am- 
bition as every agitated the heart of Caesar himself ! — ^and 
then. Sir, I changed my character entirely — Sir, I bowed, 
and watched, and hearkened, and lurked for intelligence, 
, and ran about backwards and forwards, and attended and 
dangled upon the then great Man, till I got into the very 
bowels of his confidence ; and then. Sir, I wriggled, and 
wriggied, and wrought, and wriggled, till I wriggled my- 
self among the very thick of them, till I got my snack of 
the clothing, the foraging, the contracts, the lottery tick- 
ets, and all the political bonuses — till at length, Sir, I be- 
came a much wealthier man, than one half of the golden 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 219' 

calves I had been so long booing to. \He rises, Egerton mes 
too.'] And was not that booing to some purpose, Sir } — Ha? 

Egerf. It was indeed, Sir. 

Sir P. But are you convinced of the good effects and 
utility of booing ? 

Egert. Thoroughly, Sir, thoroughly. 

Sir P. Sir, it is infallible — but, Charles, ah ! while I was 
thus booing, and wriggling and making a princely fortune 
— ah ! I met many heart sores, and disappointments, from 
the want of literature, eloquence, and other popular abili- 
ties. Sir : for, if I could have spoken in the house, I should 
have done the deed in half the time — but the instant I 
opened my mouth there, they all fell a laughing at me — all 
which deficiencies. Sir, I determined at any expense, to 
have supplied by ^e polished education of a son, who I 
hoped would one day, raise the house of Mac Sycophant to 
the highest pinnacle of ministerial ambition; — This, Sir, 
is my plan, I have done my part of it, nature has done 
hers — You are eloquent, you are popular — all parties like 
you — and now Sir, it only remains for you to be directed 
— completion follows. 



SCENE FROM PIZARRO. PIZARRO AND GOMEZ. KOTZEBUE. 

Piz. How now, Gomez, what bringest thou ? 

Gom. On yonder hill, among the palm trees, we have 
surprised an old Peruvian. Escape by flight he could not, 
and we seized him unresisting. 

Piz. Drag him before us. [Gomez brings in Orozembo.'] 
What art thou, stranger .? 

Oro. First tell me who is the captain of this band of 
robbers. 

Piz. Ha! 

Gom. Madman ! Tear out his tongue, or else 

Oro. Thou wilt hear some truth. 

Gom. Shall I not plunge this into his heart ? [Showing 
a dagger.] 

Oro. [to Pizarro.] Does your army boast many such 
heroes as this .'' 

Piz. Audacious ! This insolence has sealed thy doom. 



220 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Die thou shalt, grey headed ruffian. But first confess^ 
what thou knowest. 

Oro. I know that which thou hast just assured me of, 
that I shall die. 

Piz. Less audacity might have preserved thy Hfe. 

Oro. My life is as a withered tree, not worth preserv- 
ing. 

Piz. Hear me, old man. Even now we march against 
the Peruvian army. We know there is a secret path that 
leads to your strong hold among the rocks. Guide us to 
that, and name thy reward. If wealth be thy wish — 

Oro. Ha, ha, ha ! 

Piz. Dost thou despise my offer ? 

Oro. Yes, thee and thy offer ! Wealth ! I have the 
wealth of two gallant sons. I have stored in heaven the 
riches which repay good actions here ! and still my chief- 
est treasure do I wear about me. 

Piz. What is that ? Inform me> 

Oro. I will, for thou canst never tear it from me. An 
unsullied conscience. 

Piz. I believe there is no other Peruviein who dares 
speak as thou dost. 

Oro. Would I could believe there is no other Spaniard 
who dares act as thou dost. 

Gom. Obdurate Pagan ! how numerous is your army ? 

Oro. Count the leaves of the forest. 

Gom. Which is the weakest part of your camp .'* 

Oro. It is fortified on all sides by justice. 

Gom. Where have you concealed your wives and chil- 
di^en ? 

Oro. In the hearts of their husbands and fathers. 

Piz. Knowest thou Alonzo ? 

Oro. Know him ! Alonzo ! Our nation's benefactor, the 
guardian angel of Peru ! 

Piz. By what has he merited that title .'' 

Oro. By not resembling thee. 

Piz. Who is this Rolla, joined with Alonzo in com- 
mand ? 

Oro. I will answer that, for I love to speak the hero's 
name. Rolla, the kinsman of the king, is the idol of our 
army.. In war a tiger, in peace a Iamb. Cora was once 



THE NEW SPEAKER. S21 

betrothed to him, but finding she preferred Alonzo, he re- 
signed his claim for Cora's happiness. 

Piz. Romantic savage ! I shall meet this RoUa soon. 

Oro. Thou hadst better not ! the terrors of his noble eye 
wouid strike thee dead. 

Gom. Silence, or tremble ! 

Oro. Beardless robber ! I never jet have learned to 
tremble before man — Why before thee, thou less than 
man ! 

Gom. Another word, audacious heathen, and I strike ! 

Oro. Strike, Christian ! then boast among thy fellows^ 
* I too, have murdered a Peruvian.' 



SECOND SCENE. ROLLA AND ALONZO.— KOTZEBUE. 

[Enter Holla disguised as a monk.'] 

Rolla. Inform me, friend, is Alonzo, the Peruvian, con- 
fined in this dungeon ? "■ 

Sent. He is. 

Rolla. I must speak with him. 

Sent. You must not. 

Rolla. He is my friend. 

iSent. JSot if he were your brother. 

Rolla. What is to be his fate ? 

Sent. He dies at sunrise. 

Rolla. Ha ! then I am come in time— 

Sent. Just to witness his death. 

Rolla. [advancing towards the door.] Soldier — I miisf 
speak with him. 

Sent, [pushing him back with his gun.] Back ! back ! it 
is impossible. 

Rtlla. I do intreat you but for one moment. 

Sent. You intreat in vain— =my orders are most strict. 

Rolla. Look on this massive wedge of gold ! Look on 
these precious gems. In thy land they will be wealth for 
thee and thine, beyond thy hope or wish. Take them, 
they are thine, let me but pass one moment with Alonzo. 

Sent. Away ! Wouldst thou corrupt me ? Me, an old 
Castilian ! 1 know my duty better. 

Rolla. Soldier ! hast thou a wife } 
19* 



222 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Sent. I have. 

Rolla. Hast thou children ? 

Sent. Four honest, lovely boys. 

Rolla. Where didst thou leave them ? 

Sent. In my native village, in the very cot where I was 
born. 

Rolla. I>ost thou love thy wife and children ? 

Sent. Do I love them ! God knows my heart, — I do. 

Rolla. Soldier ! Imagine thou wast doomed to die a 
cruel death in a strange land — What would be thy last 
request .'' 

Sent. That some of my comrades should carry my dying 
blessing to my wife and children. 

Rolla. What if that comrade was at thy prison door, and 
should there be told, thy fellow soldier dies at sunrise, yet 
thou shalt not for a moment see him, nor shalt thou bear 
his dying blessing to his poor children, or his wretched 
wife — what wouldst thou think of him who thus could 
drive thy comrade from the door.? 

Sent. How ! 

Rolla. Alonzo has a wife and child ; and I am come 
but to receive for her, and for her poor babe, the last bles- 
sing of my friend. 

Sent. Go in. [exit sentinel.'] 

Rolla. [calls.'] Alonzo ! Alonzo ! 

[Enter Jllonzo^ speaking as he comes i7i.] 

Alon. How ! is my hour elapsed ? Well, I am ready. 

Rolla. Alonzo, know me ! 

Mon. Rolla ! Heavens ! how didst thou pass the guard ? 

Rolla. There is not a moment to be lost in words. This 
disguise I tore from the dead body of a friar, as I passed 
our field of battle. It has gained me entrance to thy dun- 
geon 5 now take it thou, and fly. 

Mon. And Rolla 

Rolla. Will remain here in thy place. 

Alon. And die for me ! No f Rather eternal tortures 
rack me. 

Rolh. I shall not die, Alonzo. It is thy life Pizarro 
seeks, not Rolla's ; and thy arm may soon deliver me from 
prison. Or, should it be otherwise, I am as a blighted 
tree in the desert ; nothing lives beneath my shelter. Thou 
art a husband and a father ; the being of a lovely wife and 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 223 

helpless infant depend upon thy life. Go! go! Alonzoj 
not to save thyself, but Cora and thy child. 

^dlon. Urge me not thus, my friend — I ^m prepared to 
die in peace. 

Rolla. To die in peace ! devoting her you have sworn 
to live for, to madness, misery, and death ! 

Mon. Merciful heavens ! 

l^olla. If thou art yet irresolute, Alonzo— now mark me 
well. Thou knowest that Rolla never pledged his word 
and shrunk from its fulfilment. And here I swear, if thou 
art proudly obstinate, thou shalt have the desperate tri- 
umph of seeino; Rolla perish by thy side. 

Jilon. O Rolla ! you distract me ! Wear you the robe, 
and though dreadful the necessity, we will strike down the 
guard, and force our passage. 

Rolla. What, the soldier on duty here "^ 

Jil&n. Yes, else seeing two, the alarm will be instant 
death. 

Rolla. For my nation's safety, I would not harm him. 
That soldier, mark me, is a man ! All are not men that 
wear the human form. He refused my prayers, refused 
my gold, denying to admit — till his own feelings bribed 
him. I will not risk a hair of that man's head, to save 
my heart strings from consuming fire. But haste ! A 
moment's further pause and all is lost. 

Mon. Rolla, I fear thy friendship drives me from honor 
and from right. 

Rolla. Did Rolla ever counsel dishonor to his friend ? 
[throiving the friar'^s garment over his shoulders.^ There ! 
conceal thy face — Now God be with thee. 



Q,UACKERY detected. SCENE FROM THE HONEYMOON. 

TOBIN. 

[An Inn. Enter Hostess ^ followed by the Qiiack^^ 

Host. Nay, nay, another fortnight. 

Quack. It cannot be. 
The man 's as well as I am ; have some mercy ! 
He has been here almost three. weeks already. 

Host. Well, then, a wei^. ^ 



^^4 THE NEW .SPEAKER. 

Quack. We may a week detain him ! 
[_Enter Balthazar behind ^ in his night-gown, with a drawn 

sioord.^ 
You talk now like a reasonable hostess, 
That sometimes has a reckoning with her conscience. 

Host. He still believes he has an inward bruise. 

Quack. I would to heaven he had ! or that he 'd slipt 
His shoulder-blade, or broke a leg or tv/o, 
Not that I bear his person any malice. 
Or luxed an arm, or even sprained his ancle ! 

Host. Ay, broken any thing, ericept his neck. 

Quark. However, for a week I '11 manage him. 
To-morrow we phlebotomize again ; 
Next day my new-invented patent draught : 
1 've tried it on a dog. Then I have some pills prepared. 
On Thursday we throw in the bark ; on Friday — > 

Bait, [coming foriva7^d.^ Well, Sir, on Friday ? what on 
Friday .'* come — 
Proceed — 

Quack. Discovered ! 

Host. Mercy, noble Sir ! [they fall on their knees.'] 

Quack. We crave your mercy. 

Bait. On your knees — 't is well ; 
Pray ; for your time is short. 

Host. Nay, do not kill us ! 

Bait. You have been tried, condemned, and only wait 
For execution. Which shall I begin with ? 

Quack. The lady, by all means, Sir ! 

Brdt. Come prepare, [to the hostess.] 

Host. Have pity on the weakness of my sex. 

Bait. Tell me, thou quailing mountain of gross flesh, 
I'ell me, and in a breath, how many poisons — 
If you attempt it — [to the Quack, who is endeavouring to 
make off] — you have cooked up for me» 

Host. None, as I hope for mercy ! 

Bait. Is not thy wine a poison .'' 

Host. No, indeed,. Sir ! 
^T is not, I own, of the first quality : 
But 

Bait. What ? 

Host. I always give short measure, Sir, 
And ease my conscience that way* 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 225 

Bait. Ease your conscience, 
I '11 ease your conscience for you ! [raises his sword.^ 

Host. Mercy, Sir ! 

Bait. Rise, if thou canst, and hear me. 

Host. Your commands. Sir ? 

Bait. If in five minutes all things are prepared 
For my departure, you may yet survive. 

Host. It shall be done in less. 

Bait. Away, thou lump-fish ! \_exit Hostess.'] 

Quack, laside.] So, now comes my turn ! 'tis all over 
with me ! 
There 's dagger, rope, and ratsbane in his looks. 

Bait. And now, thou sketch and outline of a man ! 
Thou thing, that has no shadow in the sun ! 
Thou eel in a consumption, eldest born 
Of Death on Famine ! thou anatomy 
Of a starved pilchard ! — 

Quack. I do confess my leanness. I am spare, 
And therefore spare me ! Man, you know, must live ! 

Bait. Yes ; he must die, too. 

Quack. For my patients' sake ! 

Bait. I '11 send you to the major part of them. 
The window. Sir, is open ;— come, prepare. 

Quack. Pray, consider. Sir, 
I may hurt some one in the street. 

Bait. Why then, 
I '11 rattle thee to pieces in a dice box. 
Or grind thee in a cofFee-mill to powder : 
For thou must sup with Pluto ; — so, make ready ! 
Whilst I, with this good small-sword for a lancet, 
Let thy starved spirit out — for blood thou hast none^ — ■ 
And nail thee to the wall, where thou shalt look 
Like a dried beetle with a pin stuck through him. 

Quack. Consider my poor wife ! > * 

Bait. Thy wife ! 

Quack. My wife. Sir. 

Bait. Hast thou dared to think of matrimony, too ? 
No conscience, and take a wife ! 

Quack. I have a wife, and three angelic babes, 
Who, by those looks, are well nigh fatherless ! 

Bait. Well, well, your wife and children shall plead for 
you. 



226 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Come, come, the pills ! where are the pills ? produce 
them. 

Quack. Here is the box. 

Bait. Were it Pandora's, and each single p«ll 
Had ten diseases in it, you should take them. 

Quack. What, all ? 

Bait. Ay, all ; and quickly too : — come, Sir, begin ! 
That 's well ; — another. 

Quack. One 's a dose ! 

Bait. Proceed, Sir ! 

Quack. What will become of me ? 
I do beseech you, let me have some drink. 
Some cooling liquid. Sir, to wash them down ! 

Bait. Oh, yes — produce the phial. 

Quack. Mercy on me ! 

Bait. Come, Sir, your new invented patent draught : 
You 've tried it on a dog ; so there is no danger. 

Quack. If you have any mercy, think of me. 

Bait, Nay, no demur ! 

Quack. May I intreat to make my will first ? 

Bait. No ; you have nought but physic to bequeath ; 
And that no one will take, though you should leave it. 

Quack. Just to step home, and see my wife and chil- 
dren ? 

Bait. No, Sir. 

Quack. Let me go home and set my shop to rights, 
And, like immortal Caesar, die with decency ! — 

Bait. Away, and thank thy lucky star I have not 
Brayed thee in thine own mortar, or exposed thee 
For a large specimen of the lizard genus. 

Quack. Would I were one ! for they can feed on air. 

Bait. Home, Sir, and be more honest ! [ea;i^.] 

Quack. If I am not, 
I '11 be more wise at least ! [exit.'] 



SCENE FROM TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

Mrs. Glenroy. To whom am I indebted for these kind 
wishes } 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 227 

Retiheii. Madam, I am the elder brother of that misera- 
ble and degraded man, your husband. 

Mrs. G. Miserable ! degraded ! [indignantly.'] 

Reu. Ay, lady. — Must he not be miserable, who risks at 
play what might preserve his family from ruin ? Is he not 
deo-raded, who, by dissipation contracts debts, and with- 
holds from honest industry its hard earned pittance ? 
\' Mrs. G. Vulgar and contemptible ! You the brother of 
Augustus ? [turning away.] 

Reu. I have confessed it. 

Mrs. G. I am sorry for it. 

Reu. So am I. — But I prefer humiHation to falsehood. 

Mrs. G. [courtesying.'] I would wish, Sir, to be mistress 
of my own time, as soon as it m.ay suit your convenience. 
[going.] 

Reu. Madam, my business here is to serve, rather than 
to please ; to speak the severe language of truth, not the 
soft blandishments of flattery. Yet, believe me, my na- 
ture, though perhaps blunt, is averse to insult, and should 
I succeed in snatching a beloved brother from ruin, the 
joy of my heart will be damped, indeed, if, in saving him, 
I forfeit your kind estimation. 

Mrs. G. [presenting her hand.] All is forgotten — you are 
my husband's brother. 

Reu. And your devoted friend. — How does your sweet 
infant .'* Where is my little nephew ? 

Mrs. G. Quite well, and with his nurse. 

Reu. Surely I am with his nurse ? 

Mrs. G.^O, no, Siii — 'tis not the fashion for ladies — 

Reu. The fashion ! Now, is it possible a woman should 
be so lost to her own felicity as to lavish on a hireling the 
cherub smile of instinctive gratitude. (X! my young ma- 
trons, in thus estranging your little ofi'spring, you forsee not 
the perdition you cause — you know not the earthly para- 
dise you abandon. 

Mrs'. G. Sir — you are eloquent. 

Reu. 'T is the subject that is so : Nature wants no orator 
to plead her cause. Ha ! a tear ! O ! hide it not ! Beheve 
me, my dear sister, no gem that sparkles in your dress is 
half so ornamental as that glistening drop, which your 
overflowing heart now shoots into your eye, endearing 
evidence of maternal sympathy. 



^28 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Mrs^ G, I feel my error. Oh ! why did not your brother 
%hus admonish, thus— '^ — 

Reu. I am your friend, but he is your lover ; and he 
who loves truly will suffer much ere he can teach his eye 
the scowl of discontent. Long, long will his heart throb 
with agony, before one groan shall dbturb your slumbers, 
one breath of reproof ruffle your peaceful bosom. I have 
learned where your husband will pass the evening. I '11 
bring him to you. 

Mrs. G. Oh, he will not leave his party. 

Reu. He shall ! he will not need compulsion to come to 
the wife he loves. — His fortunes are most desperate — 'his 
character, his honor — perhaps his life — implicated. 

Mrs. G. Oh Heavens ! in mercy do not say so. 

Reu. Do you, then, love my poor brother ? 

Mrs. G. Better than my life, a thousand times. 

Reu. Poor, did I call him ? Ah ! he possesses— — - 

Mrs. G. What ? 

Reu. A treasure worth the empire of the world, — a vir- 
tuous woman's heart. Fear nothing — All shall be well. 

Mrs. G. I promised my dear Augustus to meet him this 
evening at a party. I shall be late. 

Reu. Pray, do not go ? 

Mrs. G. Not go ! 

Reu. Come, 't is the first favor I ever asked of you. 

Mrs. G. The whole world will be there. 

Reu. And cannot the whole world go on without you 
for one night ? — Hush ! I hear some one in distress. 

Mrs. G. 'T is the cry of my dear little infants 

Reu. Ay, it wants its mother. Come — ^I long to hold it 
in my arms. 

Mrs. G. But my dress is unfit-^ 

Reu. The best in the world ; these gewgaws will delight 
the child ; they 're fit for nothing else. 



SCfiNB FROM * THREE WEEKS AFTER MARRIAGE.'— SIR 
CHARLES AND LADY RACKET. 

Lady R. la ! I 'm quite fatigued — I can hardly move 
-Why don't you help me, you barbarous man I 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 229 

'"Sir V. There ; take my arm. 

Lady M. But I won't be laughed at — I don't love jou. 

Sir C. Don't you ? 

Lady R. No. — Bear me ! [pulUng off her glove'] this 
g]ove ! — Why don't you help me off with my glove ? 
Pshaw ! you awkward thing, let it alone : you an't fit to 
be about me. — Reach me a chair — you have no compassion 

for me*^ — I am so glad to sit down ^Why do you drag me 

to routs ? you know I hate 'em. 

Sir C. Oh there's no existing, no breathing, unless one 
does as other people of fashion do. 

Lady R. But I 'm out of humor — I lost all my money. 

■Sir C. How much ? 

Lady R. Three hundred. 

Sir C. Never fret for that — ^I don't value three hun- 
dred pounds, to contribute to your happiness. 

Lady R. Don't yau ? — Not value three hundred pounds 
to please me ? 

Sir C. You know I don't. 

Lady R. Ah ! you fond fool But I hate gaming — It 

almost metamorphoses a woman into a fury. — Do you 
know that I was frightened at myself several times to night ? 
1 had a huge oath at the very tip of my tongue. 

Sir C. Had you ? 

Lady R. I caught myself at it, and so I bit mj lips. — 
And then I was crammed up in a corner of the room with 
such a strange party, at a whist table, looking at black and 
red spots — did you mind them ? 

Sir C. You know I was busy elsewhere. 

Lady R. There was that strange, unaccountable woman, 
Mrs. Nightshade. — She behaved so strangely to her hus- 
band — a poor, inoffensive, goodnatured, good sort of a 
good-for-nothing kind of a man — But she so teased him — 
' How could you play that card ? Ah, you 've a head, and 
so has a pin — you 're a numskull, you know you are — 
Ma'am, he has the poorest head in the world : he does not 
know what he is about — you know you don't — Ah, fie ! I 
am ashamed of you.' 

Sir C. She has served to divert you, I see. 

Lady R. And, then, to crown all, there was my lady 
Clackit, who runs on with an eternal volubility of nothing, 
out of all season, time, and place. — In the very midst of 
20 



230 THE KEW SPEAKER. 

the game she begins — ' Lard, Ma'am, I was apprehensive 1 
should not be able to wait on your ladyship — my poor little 
dog, Pompey — the sweetest thing in the world ! — a spade 
led ! there 's the knave. I was fetching a walk, Me'm, 
the other morning in the park — a fine frosty morning it 
was. — I love frosty weather of all things — let me look at 
the last trick — -and so, Me'm, little Pompey — and if your 
ladyship was to see the dear creature pinched with the 
frost, and mincing his steps along the Mall — with his pret- 
ty Httle innocent face — I vdw I donH know what to play. 
— And so, Me'm, while I was talking to Captain Flimsey 
— your ladyship knows Captain Flimsey. — JVothing but 
rubbish in my hand ! — / canH help it. — And so, Me'm, 
five odious frights of dogs beset my poor little Pompey — 
the dear creature has the heart of a lion : but who can re- 
sist five at once ? and so, Pompey barked for assistance. 
- — the hurt he received was upon his chest — the doctor 
would not advise him to venture out, till the wound is heal- 
ed for fear of an inflammation.- — Pray what 's trumps ? ' 

Sir C. My dear, you 'd make a most excellent actress. 

Lady E. Well, now, let 's go to rest but. Sir 

Charles, how shockingly you played that last rubber, when 
I stood looking over you ! 

Sir C. My love, I played the truth of the game. 

LadAj R. No indeed, my dear, you played it wrong. 

Sir C. Po ! nonsense ! you don't understand it. 

Lady R. I beg your pardon, I 'm allotved to play better 
than you. 

Sir C. All conceit, my dear ! I was perfectly right. 

Lady R. No such thing. Sir Charles ; the diamond was 
the play. 

Sir C. Po ! po ! ridiculous ! the club was the card 
against the world. 

Lady R. Oh ! no, no, no ; I say it was the diamond. 

Sir C. Madam, I say it was the club. 

Lady R. What do you fly into such a passion for ? 

Sir C. "Death and fury, do you think I don't know what 
I 'm about ! I tell you once more, the club was the judge- 
ment of it. 

Lady R. May be so have it your own way. 

Sir C. Vexati'on ! — you 're the strangest woman that 
ever lived ; there 's no conversing with you. — Look ye 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 231 

here, my Lady Racket— 'tis the clearest case inthe world, 
I '11 make it plain in a moment. 

Lady R. Well, Sir, ha ' ha ! ha ! 

Sir C. I had four cards left — a trump had led — they 
were six — no. no, no, they were seven, and we nine — 
then you know — the beauty of fhe play was to 

Lady R. Well, now, 'tis amazing to me, that you can't 
see it. Give me leave. Sir Charles — your left hand adver- 
sary had led his last trump — and he had before finished the 
club and roughed the diamond — now if you had put on 
your diamond 

Sir C. But, Madam, we were playing for the odd trick. 

Lady R. And sure the play for the odd trick 

Sir C. Lady Racket, can't you hear me ? 

Lady R. Go on. Sir. 

Sir C. Hear me, I say — Will you hear me ? 

Lady R. I never heard the like in my life ? 

Sir C. Why then you are enough to provoke the pa- 
tience of a stoic. — Very well. Madam ! — You know no 
more of the game than your father's leaden Hercules on 
the top of the house. — You know no more of whist than he 
does of gardening. 

Lady R. Ha, ha, ha ! 

Sir C. You 're a vile woman, and I '11 not sleep anoth- 
er night under one roof with you. 

Lady R. As you please, Sir. 

Sir C. Madam, it shall be as I please — I '11 order my 
chariot this moment \_going;'] — and when your family were 
standing behind counters, measuring out tape and barter- 
ing for Whitechapel needles, my ancestors, my ancestors. 
Madam, were squandering away whole estates at cards ; 
whole estates, my Lady Racket [s/ie hums a tune'] — Why 
then, by all that 's dear to me, I '11 never exchange anoth- 
er word with you, good, bad, or indifferent. — Look'ye, my 
Lady Racket, thus it stood— the trump being led, it was 

then my business 

Lady R. To play the diamond to be sure. 

Sir C. I have done with you forever ; and so you may- 
tell your father. \_Exit in a passion.] 

Lady R. What a passion the gentleman is in ! ha ! ha ! 
ha ! I promise him, I '11 not give up my judgement. 
[Reenter Sir Charles.] 



^32 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Sir C. My Lady Racket — look ye, Madam, once mo-re^. 
out of pure good nature 

Lady R. Sir, I am convinced of your good nature. 

Sir C. That, and that only prevails with me to tell you, 
the club was the play. 

Lady R. Well, be it so, I have no objection. 

Sir C. 'Tis the clearest point in the world — we are nine, 
and 

Lady R. And for that very reason, you know the club 
was the best in the pack. 

Sir C. There 's no such thing as talking to you — you 're 
a base woman — I '11 part from you forever — you may live 
here with your father and admire his fantastical ever- 
greens, till you grow as fantastical yourself- 1 '11 set out 

for London, this instant — [stops at the doorj — The , club 
was not the best in the pack. 



SCENE FROM THE SIEGE OF VAT^NCIA, ALTERED FROM MRS 

HEMANS, BY THE EDITOR. 

Gonzalez^ Governor of Valencia, and Elmina, 

El. My noble lord, 
Welcome from this day's toil ! It is the hour 
Whose shadows as they deepen, bring repose 
Unto all weary men ; and wilt not thou 
Free thy mailed bosom from the corslet's weight 
To rest at fall of eve. 

Gon. There may be rest 
For the tired peasant, when the vesper bell 
Doth send him to his cabin, there to sit 
Watching his children's sport, — but unto me 
Who speaks of rest ? 

El. O, why is this ? how my heart sinks I 

Gon. It must not fail thee yet. 
Daughter of heroes, thine inheritance 
Is strength to meet all conflicts. Thou canst name 
In thy long line of glorious ancestry 
Those whom the earth called martyrs, although HeavenL 
But claimed their blood, their lives, and not the things 
Which grow as tendrils round a parent's heart, — 
No, not their children ! 

El. Mean'st thou ^ — know'st thou aught ? — 
I cannot utter it my sons ! my sons ! 



THJE NEW iSPEAKElt. ^33 

is it of them ? — O wouldst thou speak of them ? 

Gon. A mother's heart divineth but too welj. 

El. Speak I adjure thee ! — I can bear it ail- 
Where are my children ? 

Gon. In the Moorish camp. 

El. Say, they live. 

Gon. They live, but there is asked / 

A ransom far too high. 

El. What ! have we wealth 
That might redeem a monarch, and our sons 
The while wear fetters ? Take thou all for them. 
Thou know'st not how serenely I could take 
The peasant's lot upon me, so my heart 
Amidst its deep affections undisturbed 
May be at peace. I can bear all things. 

Gon. Canst thou bear disgrace ? 

El. We were not born for that ? 

Gon. No, thou sayest well ! 
Hold to that lofty faith, and if by wealth 
Chains can be riven, then let the captives spring 
Rejoicing to the light ! But he, by whom 
Freedom and life may but be worn with shame, 
Hath nought to do, save fearlessly to fix 
His steadfast look on the majestic Heavens, 
And proudly die ! 

El. Gonzalez, who must die ? 

Gon. ^ They on whose lives a fearful price is set, 

But to be paid by treason ! — -Our sons must die. 
Unless I yield the city. 

El. No, no, not so ! 
Is there no hope .? Tell me, Gonzalez, tell me 
There is some hope ! 

Gon. Hope but in Him, 
Who bade the patriarch lay his fair young son 
Bound on the shrine of sacrifice, and when 
The bright steel quivered in the father's hand 
Just raised to strike, sent forth his awful voice 
Commanding to withhold ! Earth has na hope, 
It rests with Him. 

El. Thou canst not tell me this ! 
Thou, father of my sons, within whose hands 
-Doth lie my children's fate I 
20*. 



234 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Gon. Hast thou cause, 
Wife of my youth, to deem it is within 
The bounds of possible things, that I should link. 
My name to that word — traitor ? 

EL Then their doom is sealed ! 
Thou wilt not save thy children ! 

Gon. Think 'st thou I feel no pangs ? 
He that hath given me sons, doth know the heart 
W^hose treasures he recalls. Of this no more. 
T' is vain. I tell thee that the inviolate cross 
Still, from our ancient temples, must look up 
Through the blue heavens of Spain, though at its foot 
I perish with my race. 

El. Scorn me not. 
In mine extreme of misery ! thou art strong — 
Thy heart is not as mine^my brain grows wild ; 
I know not what I ask ! — and yet 't were but 
Anticipating fate, — since it must fall. 
That cross must fall at last ! There is no hope, 
No power within this city of the grave 
To keep its place on high. — 
We are forsaken in our utmost need — 
By heaven and earth forsaken. 

Gon. Then we must fall 
As men that in severe devotedness 

Have chosen their part, and bound themselves to death, 
Through high conviction that their sutfering land, 
By the free blood of martyrdom alone 
Shall call deliverance down. 

El. What I must we burst all ties 
Wherewith the thrilling chords of life are twined. 
What time is given thee to resolve on what 
I cannot utter .? Speak ! Thou knowest too well 
What I would say. 

Gon. Until — ask not !-^The time is brief 

El. Can it be 
That man in his cold heartedness, hath dared 
To number, and to mete us forth the sands 
Of hours, nay moments ? No, it is not thus, 
We must have time to school us, 

Gon. We have but to bow the head in silence. 
When Heaven^s voice calls bacU the things we love 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 235 

El. Love ! love ! there is none 
In ail this cold and hollow world, no fount 
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within 
A mother's heart. — It is but pride, wherewith 
To his fair son the father's eye doth turn. 
Watching his growth. Ay, on the boy he looks, 
The bright, glad creature, springing in his path, 
But as the heir of his great name, the young 
And stately tree, whose rising strength, ere long, 
Shall bear his trophies well. — And this is love ! 
This is man''s love ! — What marvel? — you ne'er made 
Your breast the pillow of his infancy. 
You ne'er watched o'er him, till the last star set. 
And morning broke on your unwearied eye. 
Not yours the face that, faded through fond care. 
Hung o'er his sleep, and duly, as Heaven's light. 
Was there to greet his waking ! You ne'er smoothed 
His couch, ne'er sung him to his rosy rest, 
Caught his least whisper, when his voice from yours 
Had learned soft utterance,^ — pressed your lip to his 
When fever parched it ; hushed his wayward cries^ 
With patient, vigilant, unwearied love ! 
No, these are vjoman's tasks ! In these her youth 
And bloom of cheeky and buoyancy of heart 
Steal from her all unmarked. My boys ! my boys ! 
Hath vain affection borne with all for this .'' 

Gon. Is there strength in man 
Thus to endure ? Could'st thou but read through all 
Its depth's of silent agony, the heart 
Thy voice of wo doth rend I— - 

El. Thy heart! — thy heart ! — -Away ! it feels not now f 
But an hour comes to tame the mighty man 
Unto the infant's weakness ; nor shall heaven 
Spare you that bitter chastening ! may you live 
To be alone, when loneliness doth seem 
Most heavy to sustain ! — For me, my voice 
Of prayer and fruitless weeping shall be soon 
With all forgotten souhds ; my quiet place 
Low with my lovely ones, and we shall sleep 
Though kifigs lead armies o'er us, we shall sleep 
Wrapt in earth's covering mantle ! — You the while 
Shall sit within your vast, forsaken halls, 



S36 (THE NEW SPEAKEIR. 

And hear tke wild and melancholy winds 

Moan through the drooping banners, never more 

To wave above your race. Ay, then call up 

Shadows, dim phantoms from ancestral tombs, 

To people that cold void ! and if you pine 

For the glad voices, and the bounding steps. 

Once through your home reechoing. 

And the clasp of twining arms, and all the joyous light 

Of eyes that laughed with youth, and made your board 

A place of sunshine ;^ — When those days are come. 

Then in your utter desolation, turn 

To the cold world, the smiling, faithless world, 

Whose favor cost your sons, and bid it quench 

Your soul's deep thirst with fame ! immortal /awie. 

Fame to the sick of heart ! — a gorgeous robe, 

A crown of victory, unto him that dies 

In the burning waste — for water ! 

Gon. This from thee ! 
Now the last drop of bitterness is poured. 
Elmina-^-I forgive thee ! 



SCENE FROM THJE VESPERS OF. PALERMO. ALTERED FROM 

MRS. HEMANS BY THE EDITOR. 

[Procida.'] 
P. And is it thus, beneath the solemn skies 
Of midnight, and in solitary caves. 
Where the wild forest creatures make their lair — 
Is 't thus the chiefs of Sicily must seek 
I'he freedom of their country ? This steep glen 
The refuge is of brave Montalba. Here 
He broods o'er Wrongs and meditates revenge* 
Could his great name and mighty arm 
Be added to our band, we yet might strike 
For Sicily and freedom. 

[Enter Montalba.] 
Welcome, my brave associate. Where is he 
Who from his battles had returned to breathe 
Once more without a corslet, and to meet 
The voices, and the footsteps, and the smiles 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 237 

Blent with his dreams of home ? Of that dark tale 
The rest is known to vengeance 1 Art thou here, 
With thy deep wrongs and resolute despair, 
Childless Montalba ? 

M. He is at thy side, — 
Call on that desolate /ai/ier, in the hour 
When his revenge is nigh. 

P. Dost thou make 
The mountain fastnesses thy dwelling still, 
While hostile banners, o'er thy father's house 
Wave their proud blazonry ? 

M. Even so, I stood 
Last night before my own ancestral towers 
An unknown outcast, while the tempest beat 
On my bare head — what recked it ? There was joy 
Within, and revelry ; the festive lamps 
Were streaming from each turret, and gay songs. 
In the stranger's tongue, made mirth. They little deemed 
Who heard their melodies ! But there are thoughts 
Best nurtured in the wild ; there are dread vows 
Known to the mountain echoes. — Procida, ' 

Call on the outcast, when revenge is nigh. 

P. I knew a young Sicilian, one whose heart 
Should be all fire. On that most guilty day. 
When with our martyred Conradin, the flower 
Of the land's knighthood perished ; he of whom 
I speak, a weeping youth, whose innocent tears 
Melted a thousand hearts that dared not aid, 
Stood by the scaffold, with extended arms, 
Calling upon his father, whose last look 
Turned full on him its parting agony. 
That father's blood gushed o'er him. — And the youth 
Then dried his tears, and, with a kindling eye, 
And a proud flush on his young cheek, looked up 
To the bright heaven. Doth he remember still 
That bitter hour ? 

M. He does. And bears a sheathless sword. 
Call on the orphan when revenge is nigh. 

P. There are men 
Who would be with us now, had they not dared 
In some wild moment of festivity, 
To give their full hearts way, and breathe a wish 



238 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

For freedom, and some traitor bore the sound 
To the tyrant. So they must die, unless 
Fate, which at times is wayward, should select 
Some other victim first. But have they not 
Brothers and friends amongst us ? 

M. Look on me ! 
I have a brother, a young, hiiih souled boy, 
A glorious creature ; but his doom is sealed 
With theirs of whom you spoke ; arid I have knelt — 
Nay, scorn me not ! — 't was for his life — I knelt 
Even at the tyrant's feet, — and he put on 
The heartless laugh of cold malignity 
We know so well, and spurned me. — But the stain 
Of shame like this takes blood to wash it off, — 
And thus it shall be cancelled ! — Call on me 
When the stern moment of revenge is nigh. 

P. I call upon thee noiu ! The land's high soul 
Is roused and moving onward. In his chains 
The peasant dreams of freedom. When the cup- 
O'erflows its bounds, the creeping poison, meant 
To dull our senses, through each burning vein 
Pours fever, lending a delirious strength 
To burst all fetters — And they shall be burst ! 
I have hoped when hope seemed frenzy ; but a power 
Abides in human will, when bent with strong 
Unswerving energy on one great aim, 
To make and rule its fortunes ? Now, before 
The majesty of yon pure Heaven, whose eye 
Is on our hearts, whose righteous arm befriends 
The arm that strikes for freedom, speak ! decree 
The fate of our oppressors. 

M. Let them fall 
When dreaming least of peril. Let them fall 
Where tyranny declared Montalba childless ! 
Where ancestral doors are shut against their lord ! 
Where filial eyes were fed with parent blood ! 
Where chains are cutting to a brother's soul ! 

Where Ay, strike him 

Where all the deep damnation of his crimes 
Concentrated may meet his dying eye. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 239 

SCENE FROM THE ^ TRAGEDY OF BERTRAM.' MATURIN. 

[Bertram asleep. ~\ 

Monk. He sleeps, if it be sleep ; this starting trance 
Whose feverish tossings and deep muttered groans 
Do prove the soul shares not the body's rest. 
How the lip works, how the bare teeth do grind. 
I will awake him from this horrid trance ; 
This is no natural sleep — ho — wake thee, stranger ! 

Ber. What wouldst thou have .'' my life is in thy power. 

Monk. Most wretched man, whose fears alone betray 
thee. 
What art thou ? Speak. 

Ber. Thou sayest I am a wretch, 
And thoQ sayest true, these weeds do witness it, 
These wave worn weeds, these bare and bruised limbs, 
What wouldst thou more, I shrink not from the question. 
T am a wretch, and proud of wretchedness, 
'T is the sole earthly thing thai, cleaves to me. 

Monk. Lightly I deem of outward wretchedness, 
For that hath been the lot of blessed saints : 
But in -their dire extreme of outward wretchedness 

Full calm they slept in dungeons and in darkness 

Such hath not been thy sleep. 

Ber. Didst watch my sleep- 

But thou couldst glean no secret from my ravings- 



Monk. Thy secrets, wretched man, I reck not of them— 
But I adjure thee, by the church's power. 
Show me thy wounded soul. 
Weep'st thou the ties of nature or of passion 

Torn by the hand of heaven ? 

O no ! full well I deemed no gentler feeling 
Woke the dark lightning of thy withering eye. 
What fiercer spirit is it tears thee thus .^ 
Show me the horrid tenant of thy heart ; 
Or wrath, or hatred, or revenge is there. 

Ber. [suddenly starting from his couch.'] I would consort 
with mine eternal enemy 
To, be revenged. 

Monk. Art thou a man or fiend, wfio speakest thus ^ ^ 

Ber. I was a man ; I know not what I am 

What others' crimes and injuries have made me. 
Look on mSj-^what am I ? [advancing.'] 



^40 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Monk. I know thee not. 

Ber. I marvel that thou sayest it, 
For lowly men full oft remember those 
In changed estate, whom equals have forgotten ; 
A passing beggar hath remembered me, 
When with strange eyes my kinsmen looked on me. 
I wore no sullied weeds on that proud day 
When thou a barefoot monk didst bow full low 
For alms, my heedless hand hath flung thee. 
Thou dost not know me ! [still approaching.'] 

Monk. Mine eyes are dim with age, but many thoughts 
Do stir within me at thy voice. 

Ber. List to me, monk, it is thy trade to talk, 
As reverend men are wont, in saintly wise, 
Of life's vicissitudes and vanities. 
Hear one plain tale that doth surpass belief. 
Hear it from me. — Count Bertram, — ay, Count Bertram, 
The darling of his liege and of his land, 
The army's idol and the council's head, 
Whose smile was fortune, and whose will was law, 
Doth bow him to a wretched monk 
For water to refresh his parched lip, 
And this hard matted couch to fling his limbs on. 

Monk. Good heaven and all its saints ! 

Ber. Wilt thou betray me ? 

Monk. Lives there the wretch beneath these waHs to do 
it? 
Sorrow enough hath bowed thy head already. 
Thou man of many woes, 
Far more I fear lest thou betray thyself 
Hard by do stand the halls of Aldobrand, 
Thy mortal enemy and cause of fall. 
Where ancient custom doth invite each stranger 
Cast on this shore to sojourn certain days. 
And taste the bounty of the castle's lord. 
If thou goest not, suspicion will arise. 
And if thou dost, (all changed as thou art,) 
Some desperate burst of passion will betray thee. — — = 
What dost thou gaze on with such fixed eyes ? 

Ber. — Ha 1 what sayest thou .'* 

I dreamed I stood before Lord Aldobrand, 
Impenetrable to his searching eyes. 



THE NEW SlPEAKEK. 24¥ 

And I did feel the horrid joy meti feel 

Measuring the serpent's coil whose farigs haV-e ^turig 

them ; — 
Scanning with giddy eye the air hung rock, 
From which they leapt and live by miracle ;— 
Following the dun skirt of the o'er past storna. 

Whose bolt did leave them prostrate. 

To see that horrid spectre of my thoughts 

In all the stern reality of life 

To mark the living lineaments of hatred, 

And say, this is the man whose sight should blast me ; 

Yet in calm, and dreadful triumph, still gaze on 

It is a horrid joy. 

Monk. I do but indistinctly hear thy words. 
But feel they have some fearful meaning in theni. 

Ber. O that I could but mate him in his might ! 

that we were on the dark wave together. 
With but one plank between us and destruction, 
That I might grasp him in these desperate arms, 
And plunge with him amid the weltering billows, 
And view him gasp for life and 

Monk. Horrible, horrible ! I charge thee, cease ! 
The shrines are trembling on these sainted walls — 
The stony forms will start to life and answer thee. 

Ber. Ha, ha,^ — I see him struggling — ^ 

1 see him ha ! ha ! ha ! \a frantic laugh.'] 

Monk. Thou desperate man, whom mercy woos in vain, 
Although with miracles she pleads ; 
Forbear, I say, to taint these holy echoes 
With the fell sounds of thy profane despair. 

Ber. Good monk, I am beholden to your patience ; 
Take this from one whose lips do mock at praise. 
Thou art a man, whose mild and reverend functions 
Might change the black creed of misanthropy. 
And bid my better angel half return. 
But 't is impossible — I will not trouble thee. 
The wayward Bertram and his moody mates 
Are tenants all unmeet for cloistered walls. 
We will find fitter home. ^ 

Monk. Whither wilt thou resort } 

Ber. Is there no forest. 
Whose shades are dark enough tcJ shelter us ; 
21 



242 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Or cavern, rifted by the perilous lightning, 
Where we must grapple with the tenanting wolf 
To earn our bloody lair ? — ^there let us bide, 
Nor hear the voice of man, nor call of heaven. 



WILLIAM TELL, ABRIDGED BY THE EDITOR FROM SEVERAL 
SCENES IN THE DRAMA OF KNOWLES. 

Gesler the tyrant. Sarnem his officer ^ and William Tell a 
Swiss peasant. 

Sar, Down, slave, upon thy knees before the governor, 
And beg for mercy. 

Ges. Does he hear ? 

Sar. He does, but braves thy power [To Tell.] Down, 
slave, 
And ask for life. 

Ges. [To Tell.] Why speak'st thou not ? 

Tell. For wonder. 

Ges. Wonder ? 

TelL Yes, that thou shouldst seem a man. 

Ges. What should I seem .'* 

Tell. A monster. 

Ges. Ha ! Beware !— think on thy chains. 

TelL Though they were doubled, and did weigh me 
down 
Prostrate to earth, methinks T could rise up 
Erect, with nothing but the honest pride 
Of telling thee, usurper to thy teeth, 
Thou art a monster. — Think on my chains ! 
How came they on me ? 

Ges. Darest thou question me ^ 

Tell. Darest thou answer } 

Ges. Beware my vengeance. 

Tell. Can it more than kill ? 

Ges. And is not that enough ? 

Tell. No, not enough : — 
It cannot take away the grace of life — 
The comeliness of look that virtue gives- 
Its port erect, with consciousness of truth — - JH 
Its rich attire of honorable deeds — • "^9 



THE NEW SPEAKER. p. 243 

Its fair report that 's rife on good men's tongues : — 
It cannot lay its hand on these, no more 
Than it can pluck his brightness from the sun, 
Or with polluted finger tarnish it. 

Ges. But it can make thee writhe. 

Tell. It may, and I may say. 
Go on, though it should make me groan again. 

Ges. Whence comest thou ? 

Tell. From the mountains. 

Ges. Canst tell me any news from them ? 

Tell. Ay ; — ^they watch no more the avalanche. 

Ges. Why so ? 

Tell. Because they look for thee. The hurricane 
Comes unawares upon them ; from its bed 
The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track. 

Ges. What then'? 

Tell. They thank kind Providence it is not thou. 
Thou hast perverted nature in them. The earth 
Presents her fruits to them, and is not thanked. 
The harvest sun is constant, and they scarce 
Return his smile. Their flocks and herds increase, 
And they look on as men who count a loss. 
There 's not a blessing Heaven vouchsafes them, but 
The thought of thee doth wither to a curse, 
As something they must lose, and had far better 
Lack. 

Ges. ' Tis well. I 'd have them as their hills 
That never smile, though wanton summer tempt 
Them e'er so much. 

Tell. But they do sometimes smile. 

Ges. Ah ! — when is that ! 

Tell. When they do pray for vengeance. 

Ges. Dare they pray for that .'' 

Tell. They dare, and they expect it too. 

Ges. From whence ? 

Tell. From Heaven, and their true hearts. 

Ges. [To Sm^nem,] Lead in his son. Now will I take 
Exquisite vengeance. [To Tell as the boy enters'] I have 

destined him 
To die along with thee. 

Tell. To die ! for what } he 's but a child. 

Ges. He 's thine, however. 



u^ TE[|: NEW speaker: 

Tell. He is an only child. 

Ges. So much the easier to crush the race,. 

Tell. He may have a mother. 

Ges. So the viper hath — 
And yet who spares it for th^ mother's sake ? 

Tell. I talk to stone. I '11 talk to it no mor^,. 
Come, my boy, I taught thee how to live, — 
I' 11 teach thee — how to die. 

Ges. But first, I 'd see thee make 
Atrial of thy skill with that same bow. 
Thy arrows never miss, 't is said. 

Tell. What is the trial ? 

Ges.. Thou look'st upon thy boy as though thou guess- 
edst it. 

Tell. Look upon my boy ! What mean you ? 
Look upon my boy as though I guessed it ! — 
Guess the trial thou'dst have me make ! — 
Guessed it instinctively ! Thou dost not mean — 
No, no — Thou wouldst not have me make 
A trial of my skill upon my child ! — 
Impossible ! I do not guess thy meaning. 

Ges. I 'd see thee hit an apple on his head, 
Three hundred paces off. 

Tell. Great Heaven ! 

Ges. On this condition will I spare 
His life and thine. 

Tell. Ferocious monster ! maj^e a father 
Murder his own child — 

Ges. Dost thou consent ? 

Tell. With his own hand ! 

The hand I 've led him when an infant by ! 
My hands are free from blood, and have no gust 
For it, that they should drink my child's. 
I '11 not murder my boy, for Gesler. 

Boy. You will not hit mcy father. You '11 be sure 
To hit the apple. Will you not save me, fether ? 

Tell. Lead me fo/th — I'll make the trial. 

Boy. Father 

Tell. Speak not to me ; — 
Let me not hear thy voice — Thou must be dumb ; 
And so should all things be — Earth should be dumb,. 
And Heaven, unless its thunder jnuttered at 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 245 

The deed, and sent a bolt to stop it.— 
Give me my bow and quiver. 

Ges. When all is ready. Sarnem, measure hence 
The distance — three hundred paces. 

Tell. Will he do it fairly ? 

Ges. What is 't to thee, fairly or not ? 

Tell. [Sarcastically] O, nothing, a little thing, 
A very little thing, I only shoot 
At my child ! 

\_Sarnem prepares to ineasure] 

Tell. Villain, stop ! You measure against the sun. 

Ges. And what of that ? 
What matter whether to or from the sun ? 

Tell. I 'd have it at my back. The sun should shine 
Upon the mark, and not on him that shoots — 
I will not shoot against the sun. 

Ges. Give him his way. [Sarmm paces and goes oid.~\ 

Tell. I should like to see the apple I must hit. 

Ges. [Picks out the smallest one'] There, take that. 

Tell. You 've picked the smallest one. 

Ges. tknow I have. Thy skill will be 
The greater if thou hittest it. 

Tell. [Sarcastkalhj.] True — true ! I did not think of 
that. 
I wonder I did not think of that. A larger one 
Had given me a chance to save my boy. — 
Give memy bow. Let me see my quiver. 

Ges. Give him a single arrow, [to an attendant.] 
[Tell looks at it and breaks it.] 

Tell. Let me see my quiver. It is not 
One arrow in a dozen I would use 
To shoot with at a dove, much less a dove 
Like that. 

Ges. Show him the quiver. 
[Sarnem returns and takes the apple and the boy to place 

them. While this is doing Tell conceals an arrow under 

kis garment. He then selects another arrow and says] 

TeU. Is the boy ready. Keep silence now 
For Heaven's sake and be my witnesses. 
That if his life 's in peril from my hand, 
' Tis only for the chance of saving it. 
21* 



246 TilE NEW^ SP^AKM. 



For mercy's sake keep motionless and silent. 
[fle aims and shoots in the direction of the boy. In a moment 
Sarnem enters with the apple on the arrow'^s p&intJ] 
Sarnem. The boy is safe. 
Tell. [Raising his arms.] Thank Heaven ! 

[As he raises his arms the concealed arrow falls J] 
Ges. [Picking it up.] Unequalled archer ! why was this 

concealed .'' 
Tell. To kill thee^ tyrant, had I slain my boy. 



SCENE FROM THE 

Dorcas. Why, Jabal, I say Jabal, where are you, slug-- 
gard ? 

. Enter Jabal. 

Jab. Here I am, mother Dorcas. Oh ! what a starving » 
star was I born under, to be the rich Jew's poor servant ; 
no rest, no peace, whilst you are awake ; lud a mercy — • 
if you did but know how your pipe echoes through this 
empty house. 

Dor. Child, child, you must not expect to be idle here. 

Jab. Why what would you have me do ? brush the bare 
walls for a breakfast ? a spider could not make a meal up- 
on them. 

Dor. I warrant thou hast filled thyself, cormorant. 

Jab. I have not had a stomachful since I belonged to you j 
you take care there shall be no fire in the kitchen, master 
provides no prog upon the shelf ; so, between you both, I 
have plenty of nothing — but cold and hunger. 

Dor. Hunger, indeed ! how should thy stomach ever be 
filled, when there is no bottom to it ^ ' Tis like the dead 
sea, fathomless. 

Jab. 'T is like the dead sea so far, that neither fish nor 
fles^h are to be found within^4t. 

Dor. Sirrah, you have a better master than you thinky 
for it 's unknown th,e charities he gives away. 

Jab. You are right, it is unknown ; at least I never 
found the secret out. If it 's charity to keep an empty cup- 
board, he has that to boast of ; the very rats would run 
a:way from su<jh a caterer. If it is charity to clothe the 



1 



THE NEW SPEAKEIl. Ml 

naked, here is a sample of it ; examine this old drab, you 
may count the threads without spectacles ; a spider's web 
is a warm blanket to it. If it is charity to feed the hun- 
gry, T have an empty stomach at his service, to which his 
charity at this present moment would be very seasonable. 

I)or. You must mortify your carnal appetites. Hav'n't 
you the credit of belonging to one of the richest men in 
the city of London ? 

Jab. I wish I was a turnspit to the poorest cook-shop in- 
stead— Oh ! if my master had but fixed his abode at Pye- 
corner, or Pudding-lane, or Fish-street hill, or any of those 
savory places — What am I the fatter for the empty dignity 
of Duke's Place ? I had rather be a miser's heir, than a 
miser's servant. 

Dor, And who knows what may happen ? Master has 
not a relation I ever heard of in the universal world. 

Jab. No, he has starved 'em all out; a chameleon could 
not live with him, he would grudge him even the air he 
feeds on. 

Dor. For shame, slanderer ! his good deeds will shine 
out in time ! 

Jab. I shan't stand in their light, they may shine through 
me, for I have grown transparent in his service. 

Dor. He will turn you out of doors, by and by. 

Jab. He may slip me through the key hole, if I stay 
much longer. But, mother Dorcas, I have made a dis- 
covery. 

Dor. I have no objection to a discovery ; out with it. 

Jab. Mother Dorcas, I have discovered that our old 
master is no more a miser than I am. 

Dor. I told you so. 

Jab. So you did, but that's not all, I have found out be- 
sides, that he is no If ebrew ; no more a Jew than Julius 
Caesar ; for to my certain knowledge, he gives away his 
money by handfuls to the consumers of hog's flesh. 

Dor. He is merciful to all mankind. 

Jab. Yes, and to all sheep and oxen, lambs and calves, 
for he will not suffer us to touch a morsel of their flesh. 
Now, because he lives without food, that 's no reason I 
should starve for want of eating. Oh ! mother Doccas, 
t is untold what terrible and abominable temptations I 
struggle with. 



248 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Dor. How are you tempted, child ? Tell nie what it is 
that moves you ? 

Jah. Why it is the devil himself, in the shape of a Bo- 
logna sausage — GraciouSj how my mouth did water as I 
saw a string of them dangling from the pent-house of an oil-^ 
man's shop. The fellow would have persuaded me they 
were not made of hog's flesh. Oh ! if I could have be- 
lieved him 

Dor. O horrible ! you must not touch the unclean beast. 

Jah. No, to be sure, your people have never tasted ba- 
con since they came out of the land of Ham. 

Dor. Jabal, Jabal ! What an escape you have had ! 

Jah. So had the sausages, for my teeth quivered to be at 
them. 

Dor. Come, my good lad, thou shalt be recompensed 
for thy self-denial ; I have an egg for thee in the kitchen. 

Jah. I hope it is an ostrich's, for I am mortally sharp 
set — O, mother Dorcas, I have a thought in my head — I 
will give old master -warning, and seek my fortune else- 
where. 

Dor. Where will you seek it ? 

Jah. Where there is plenty of prog, be assured : I will 
go upon the stage, and turn actor ; there is a great many 
eating parts, and I hope to fill them all. I was treated 
t'other night to a play, where there was a fine notable leg 
of lamb served up to table — Oh ! how I did long to be the 
performer. I won't say so many good things would have 
come out of my mouth, but a pretty many more would have 
gone into it. 

Dor. How you ramble, sirrah ; what megrims you have 
in your head. 

Jah. Emptiness breeds them — Mercy, how glad I should 
be to see it written down in my part^' Enter Jahal ivith a 
roUst chicken.'^ 

Dor. Come, come, homelier fare must content you ; let 
us light the lamp and boil our egg. 

Jah. Our egg ! What, is it between us ? One egg, and 
two to eat it ! 

Dor. Well, I care not if I spend sixpence for a treat, 
so thou wilt be sociable and merry when it is over. 

Jah. Agreed ; only give good cheer for my dinner, and 
we will have good humor for the dessert. O, that Bologna 
sausage ! 



THE NEW SPEAKEE. Sim 

SELF-INTEREST. ALTERED FROM FLELDING BY THE EDITOR.^ 

[Scene. ...an Inn. — Enter Hostess and Betty.'] 

Hostess. Betty ! 

Betty. Here, madam. 

Hostess. Where 's your master ? 

Betttj. He 's without, madam ; and has sent me for a 
shh-t to lend a poor man who has been robbed and mur- 
dered on the road. 

Hostess. Touch one if you dare, you slut ! your master 
is a pretty sort of man to take in naked vagabonds, and 
clothe them with his own clothes. I '11 have no suck 
doings. If you touch one I '11 throw this knife at your 
head. Go send your master to me. [exit Betty.] 

Pretty work, pretty work this, truly. We should make 
fine way a-head, if my husband were at helm. 
[Enter Mr. Toiulouse.] 

What do you mean by this, Mr. Towlouse .? Am I to 
buy shirts to lend to a set of dirty rascals ^ 

Tow. My dear, this is a poor wretch 

Hostess. I know it is a poor wretch, but what have we 
to do with poor wretches ^ The law makes us provide 
for too many already. 

Toiv. My dear, this man has been Bobbed of all he had. 

Hostess. Well, where 's his money then to pay his reck- 
oning : Why doth not such a fellow go to a poor-house ? 
I shall send him packing immediately, I assure you. 

Toiv. My dear, common charity won't suffer you to do 
that. 

Hostess. Common charity, indeed ! Common charity 
teaches us to provide for ourselves and our families, and 
I and mine won't be ruined by your charities, I assure 
you. 

Tow. Well, my dear, do as you will, you know I never 
contradict you. 

[Enter Surgeon.] 

Surg. I come to acquaint you that your guest is in such 
extreme danger, that I can scarcely see any hopes of his 
recovery. 

Hostess. Here's a pretty kettle of fish you have brought 
upon us 1 we are like to have a funeral at our own ex- 



250 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Tow. My dear, I am not to blame. He was brought 
hither by the stage-coach, and Betty had put him to bed 
before I was stirring. 

Hostess. And what induced Tom Whipwell to bring such 
guests to ray house, when there are so many ale houses on 
the road proper for, their reception. 
[Enter Betty.] 

Betty. The wounded man begs you for mercy's sake to 
let him have a little tea. 

Hostess. Tea indeed ! Nothing will serve his delicate 
stomach, then, but tea. Tea costs money, tell him. 

Betty. I am sure, madam, you will lose nothing by serv- 
ing this gentleman, for I know he is one by the delicacy 
of his skin. 

Hostess. Plague on his skin, I suppose that is all we are 
like to have for his reckoning. I desire no such gentle- 
men should ever call at the Dragon. But there is a car- 
riage at the door. Run, Towlouse, and lead them into the 
best parlor. Law ! how neglectful you are, Mr. Towlouse 
— here is the gentleman now. 

[Enter a strav^ger in a great cloak.~\ 

Betty, go and tell the murdered man to pack up and be 
off, and make ready something for this gentleman's supper. 

Stranger. What murdered man do you speak of .'' 

Hostess. O Sir, only a poor wretch, who was knocked 
down and robbed on the high road a few hours ago. 

Stranger. Are there no hopes of his recovery .? 

Surgeon. I defy all the surgeons in London to do him 
any good. 

Stranger. Pray, Sir, what are his wounds ? 

Surgeon. Why, do you know any thing of wounds .'' 

Stranger. Sir, I have a slight acquaintance with sur- 
gery. 

Surgeon. A slight acquaintance — ha ! ha ! ha ! I be- 
lieve it is a slight one, indeed. I suppose. Sir, you have 
travelled. 

Stranger. No, Sir. 

Surgeon. Have practiced in the hospitals perhaps ^ 

Stranger. No, Sir. 

Surgeon. Whence, then, Sir, if I may be so bold as to 
inquire, have you got your knowledge in surgery ? 

Stranger. Sir, I do not pretend to much, but the little I 
know I have acquired from books. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 251 

burgeon. Books ! Ay, I suppose you understand physic 
too, as well as surgery, {a general laugh.'] 

Stranger. Rather hetter. 

Surgeon. Ay, like enough, livinking.^ Why / know a 
little of physic too. 

Tow. I wish I knew half as much, I 'd never wear an 
apron again. 

Surgeon. Why, I believe, landlord, there are few men, 
though I say it, that handle a fever better. 

Stranger. I am thoroughly convinced. Sir, of your great 
learning and skill, but I will thank you to let me know 
your opinion of the patient's case above stairs. 

Surgeon. Sir, [ivith much solemnity,'] his case is that of a 
dead man. The contusion on his head has perforated the 
internal membrane of the occiput and divellicated that 
radical, small, minute, invisible nerve, which coheres to 
the pericranium 

Stranger. That will do. Sir. You have convinced me 
that you are . 

Surgeon. Are what, Sir .'* 

Stranger. A quack, whose aim it is to impose upon the 
ignorant and unfortunate. 

Surgeon. And what are you. Sir ? 

Stranger. Surgeon to the Prince, who has just been rob- 
bed, and lies ill in this house. One of his servants, who 
escaped when the robbery was committed, brought me the 
information. Your servant. Sir, [speaking to the Surgeon, 
who is making towards the door.] Now, landlord, conduct 
me to your guest, [exit with landlord.] 

Hostess. Betty, John, Samuel, where are you all ? Have 
you no ears or no conscience, not to tend the sick better ? 
See what the gentleman wants. But any one may die for 
all you ; you have no more feeling than my husband. If 
a man lived a fortnight in his house without spending a 
penny, he would never put him in mind of it. See wheth- 
er the gentleman drinks tea or coffee for supper, [exit ser- 
vant] 

[Enter Mr. Towlouse.] 

Tow. My dear, this wounded traveller must be a greater 
man than we took him for. Some servants in livery have 
just arrived and inquired for him. 

Hostess. God forbid that I should not discharge the duty 



252 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

of a Ghristian, since the poor gentleman is brought to our 
house. I have a natural antipathy to vagabonds^ but can 
pity the misfortunes of a Christian as soon as another. 

Tow. If the traveller be a gentleman, though he have 
no money about him now, we shall most likely be paid 
hereafter, so you may begin to score as soon as you 
please. 

Hosttss. Hold your simple tongue, and don't pretend to 
instruct me in my business. I am sure I am sorry for the 
gentleman's misfortune with all my heart, and I hope the 
villains who have used him so barbarously will be hanged. 
Let us go and see what he wants. God forbid he should 
want any thing in my house. 



SCENE BETWEEN CAPTAIN TACKLE AND JACK BOWLIN. 

Boivl. Good day to your honor. 

Capt. Good day, honest Jack. 

Bowl. To day is my captain's birth day. 

Capt. I know it. 

Boiul. I am heartily glad on the occasion. 

Capt. I know that too. 

Bowl. Yesterday your honor broke your sea-foam pipe. 

Capt. Well, sir booby, and why must I be put in mind 
of it ? it was stupid enough to be sure, but hark ye. Jack, 
all men at times do stupid actions, but I never met with 
one who liked to be reminded of them. 

Boivl. I meant no harm your honor. It was only a kind 
of introduction to what I was going to say. I have been 
buying this pipe head and ebony tube, and if the thing is 
not too bad, and my captain will take such a present on 
his birth day for the sake of poor old Jack 

Capt. Is that what you would be at — Come, let 's see. 

Boivl. To be sure it is not sea-foam ; but my captain 
must think when he looks at it, that the love of old Jack 
was not mere foam neither. 

Capt. Give it here, my honest fellow. 

Boivl. You will take it } 

Capt. To be sure I will. 

Bowl. And will smoke it ? 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 253 

Z)apt. That I will, [feeling in his pockef] 

Bowl, And will not think of giving me any thing in re- 
turn ? 

Capt. [icithdraiving his hand from his pochet] No, no. 

You are right. 

Bowl. Huzza ! now let mother Grimkin bake her al- 
mond cakes out of her daily pilferings and be hanged. 

Capt. Fie, Jack ! v/hat 's that you say ! 

Bowl. The truth. I have just come from the kitchen, 
where she is making a great palaver about 'her cake,' 
and 'her cake,' and yet this morning she must be put in 
mind that it was her master's birth day. Hang me, I have 
thought of nothing else this month. 

Capt. And because you have a better memory, you 
must blame the poor woman. Shame on you. 

Bowl. Please your honor, she is an old 

Capt. Avast ! 

Bowl. Yesterday she made your wine cordial^ of sour 
beer, so to day she makes you an almond cake of 

Capt. Hold your tongue, Sir. 

Boivl. A'nt you obliged to beg the necessaries of life as 
if she were a pope or adrisiral ? and last year when you 
was bled, though she had laid up chest upon chest full of 
linen, and all yours, if the truth was known, yet no band- 
age was found till I tore the spare canvass from my Sun- 
day shirt to rig your honor's arm. 

Capt. You are a scandalous fellow, [throivs the pipe back 
to hirriy'] away with you and the pipe to the devil. 

Bowl, [looking attentively at his master and the pipe.^ I 
am a scandalous fellow ? 

Capt. Yes ! 

Boiol. Your honor will not have the pipe ? 

Capt. No ; I will take nothing from him who would 
raise his own character at the expense of another old ser- 
vant. 

[Jack takes up the pipe and throws it out <f the windoiv.^ 

Capt. What are you doing ? 
, Bowl. Throwing the pipe out of the window. 

Capt. Are you mad ? 

Bowl. Why, what should I do with it .'' You will not 
have it, and it is impossible for me to use it, for as often 
as I should puff away the smoke, I should think, ' old 
22 



254 THE HEW SPEAKER. 

Jack Bowlin, what a pitiful scamp you must be, a man 
whom you have served honestly and truly these thirty 
years, and who must know you from stem to stern, says 
you are a scandalous fellow,' and the thought would make 
me weep like a child. But when the pipe is gone, I 
shall try to forget the whole business, and say to myself, 
'my poor old Captain is sick, and does not mean what he 
said.' 

Capt. Jack, come here, \takes his hand.'] I did not 
mean what I said. 

Bowl, [shakes his hand heoiiihj.] I knew it, I knew it. I 
have you and your honor at heart, and when I see such 
an old hypocritical bell-wether cheating you out of your 

hard earned wages, it' makes my blood boil- 

Capt. Are you at it again ? Shame on you. You have 
opened your heart to-day, and given me a pe^p into its 
lowest hold. 

Boivl. So much the better ! for you will then see that 
my ballast is love and truth to my master. But hark ye, 
master, it is certainly worth your while to inquire into the 
business. 

Capt. And hark ye, felloW, if I find you have told me a 
lie, I '11 have no mercy on you. I '11 turn you out of doors 
to starve in the street. 

Bowl. No, Captain, you won't do that. 
Capt. But I tell you I will, though. I will do it. And 
if you say another word, I '11 do it now. 

Boivl. Well, then away goes old Jack to the hospital. 
Capt. What's that you say ? hospital ? hospital, you 
rascal ! what will you do there ? 
Bowl. Die. 

Capt. And so you will go and die in a hospital,' will 
you } Why— why — you lubber, do you think I can 't 
take care of you after I have turned you out of doors, 
hey ? 

Bowl. Yes, I dare say you would be willing to pay my 
board, and take care that I did not want in my old days, 
but I would sooner beg than pick up money so thrown at 
me. 

Capt. Rather beg ! there 's a proud rascal ! 

Bowl. He that don't love me must not give me money. 

Capt. Do ye hear that } Is not this enough to give a 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 255 

sound man the gout. You sulky fellow, do you recollect 
twenty years ago, when we fell into the clutches of the 
Algerines. The pirates stripped me of my last jacket, 
but you lubber, who v/as it hid two pieces of gold in his 
hair, and who was it that half a year afterwards, when we 
were ransomed and turned naked on the world, shared his 
money and clothes with me ? Hey, fellow, and now you 
would die in a hospital. 

Boivl Nay, but Captain 

Capt. And when my ship's crew mutinied, at the risk 
of his life he disclosed the plot. Have you forgotten it, 
you lubber ? 

Boivl. Well, and didn't you build my old mother a house 
for it ? 

Capt. And when we had boarded the French privateer, 
and the captain's hanger hung over my head, did'nt you 
strike off the arm that was going to split my skull ! Have 
you forgot that too ? Have I built you a house for that ? 
Will you die in a hospital now — you ungrateful dog ! 
hey ? 

Bowl. My good old master ! 

Capt. Would you h^^e it set on my tombstone, ' here 
lies an unthankful hound who let his preserver and mess- 
mate die in a hospital,' would you ? Tell me this minute, 
you will live and die by me, you lubber ! Come here and 
give me your hand ! 

Bowl, \_going towards him.] My noble, noble master. 

Capt. Avast. Stand off, take care of my lame leg ; 
yet I had rather you should hurt that than my heart, my 
old boy. [shakes his hand heartily.] Now go and bring me 
the pipe. Stop, let me lean on you, and I will go down 
and get it myself, and use it on my birth day. You would 
die in a hospital, would you, you unfeeling lubber ? 



IRISH COURTESY- 

Stranger and O^Callaghan. 
Str. I have lost my way, good friend ; can you assist 
me in finding it ,-* 



256 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

O'Neal. Assist you in finding it, Sir Pay, by my faith and 
troth, and that I will, if it was to the world's end, and far- 
ther too. 

Str. I wish to return by the shortest route to the Black 
Rock. 

O'Neal. Indade, and you will, so plase your honor's hon- 
or — and O'CaJlaghan's ownself shall show you the way^ 
and then you can't miss it, you know. 

Sir. I would not give you so much trouble, Mr. O'C^al- 
laghan. 

OWal. It is never a trouble, so plase your honor, for an 
Irishman to do his duty. \_Boivi7ig.'] 

Str. Whither do you travel, friend ? 

O'Neal. To Dublin, so plase your honor — -sure, all the- 
world knows that Judy O'Flannaghan will be married to- 
morrow, God willing, to Pat Ryan; and Pat, you know, is 
my own foster-brother, — because why, we had but one 
nurse betwane us, and that was my own mother — but she 
died one day, the Lord rest her swate soul ! and left me an 
orphan, for my father married again, and his new wife was 
the devil's own child, and did nothing but bate me from 
morning till night — Och, why did not I die before I was 
born to see that day, for, by St. Patrick, the woman's heart 
was as cold as a hailstone. 

Str. But what reason could she have for treating you so 
unmercifully. 

O'Neal. Ah, your honor, and sure enough, there are al- 
ways rasons as plenty as potatos for being hardhearted. 
And I was no bigger than a dumpling at the time, so I 
could not help myself, and my father did not care to help 
me. and so I hopped the twig, and parted old nick's dar- 
ling; och, may the devil find her wherever she goes. — But 
here I am alive and lapeing^ and going to see Pat mar- 
ried ; and faith, to do him justice, he 's an honest lad as any 
within ten miles of us, and no disparagement neither, — and 
I love Pat, and I love all his family, ay, by my soul do I, 
every mother's skin of them — and by the same token, I 
have travelled many a long mile to be present at his wed- 
ding. 

Str. Your miles in Ireland are much longer than ours, I 
believe. 

O' Cat. Indade, and you may helave that, your honor, be- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 257 

cause why, St. Patrick measured them in his coach, you* 
know. Och, by the powers ! — the time has been — ^but 't is 
no matter, the devil a copper now belongs to the family — 
but as I was saying, the day has been, ay, by my troth, 
and the night too, when the O'Callaghans, good luck 
to them, held their heads up as high as the best ; and 
though I have not a rod of land belonging to me, but what I 
hire, I love my country, and would halve my last potato 
with every poor cratur that has none. 

Str. Pray, how does the bride appear .'* 

O^CaL Och, by my soul, your honor, she 's a nate arti- 
cle — and then she will be rigged out as gay as a lark, and 
as fine as a pacock, because why, she has a great lady for 
her godm'Other, long life and success to her, who has given 
Judy two milch cows, and five pounds in hard money — And 
Pat has taken as dacent apartments as any in Dublin — a 
nate comely parlor as you'd wish to see, just six fate under 
ground, with a nice, beautiful ladder to go down — and all 
so complate and gentale, and comfortable as a body may 
say 

Str. Nothing like comfort, Mr. O'Callaghan. / 

O^Cal. Faith and you may say that, your honor — {job- 
bing his hands] — Comfort is Comfort, says I to Mrs. O'Cal- 
laghan, when we are all sated so cleverly around a great 
big turf fire, as merry as grigs, with the dear little grunt- 
ers snoring so siuately in the corner, defying wind and 
weather, v/ith a dry thatchy and a sound conscience to go 
to slape upon 

Str. A good conscience makes a soft pillow. 

0''Cal. Och, jewel, sure it is not th« best beds that 
make the best slapers ; for there 's Kathleen and myself 
can slape like two great big tops, and our bed is none of 
the softest — because why, we slape on the ground, and 
have no bed at all at all. 

Str. It is a pity my honest fellow, that you should ever 
want one. There, [giving him a guinea'] — Good by, Mr. 
O'Callaghan. 

O'Neal. I '11 drink your honor's health, that I will — and 
may God and the blessed Virgin bless you and yours, as 
long as grass grows and water runs. 



22* 



^m I*MM ^tW WEAKER 

fJi^Ntri. *N<Sti9H Nd'f^L. MISS BtR^EY. 

Mi»^ Bevef^lifj Mr. Mead^s, and Mt. G&slport^ 

Mr. Mead. HAvifc fovi b^eri .long irt town Ma'am ? 

MisS B. No, Si^. 

J»fr. JWead. This i^ ntii jbxxt first winter ? 

Miss B. Of being in toTJrn it is, Sir. 

Mr. Mead. Then yoil have Something liev^ io see ; O 
charming ! How I eftty yot< ! Are you pleased with th6 
Pantheon ? 

Miss B. Very much, Sir, I hstve seen no birilding at all 
equal to it. 

Mr. Mead. You have not theA bcien abroai<l, Madam. 
Travelling is the ruin of all happiness \ There '*s no look^ 
ing at a biiilding here, after seeing Italy. 

Miss B. What ! Does all happiness then dep6Ad upon 
the sight of buildings, Sir ? 

Mr. Mead, [^gaping and after a pause~\ I beg yMr pardofi^ 
Ma'am, you v>'ere saying something ? 

Miss B. No, Sir ; nothing worth repeating. 

Mr. Mead. O, pray don't punish me so seV6YeIy as not 
to let me hear it ! [gapes'] Don't you feid this plaefe ex- 
tremely tiresome, Ma'am ^ 

Miss B. Yes, Sir, [smiling'] it is, indeed, not Very enter-*- 
taining. 

Mr. Mead. N'othing is entertaining for two minutes to- 
gether. Things are so little different one from another, 
that there is no making pleasure out of any thing. We go 
the same dull round forever ; nothing new, no variety ! all 
the same thing over again ! Are you fond of public places,^ 
Ma'am ? 

Miss B. Yes, Sir, moderately so. 

Mr. Mead. Then I envy you extremely ; for you have 
some amusement always in your own power. How desir- 
able that is ! 

Miss B. And have you not the same resources, Sir ? 
Mr. Mead. Oh, no ! I am tired to death ! tired of every 
thing ; I would give the universe for a disposition less dif- 
ficult to please. Yet, after all, what is there to give pleas- 
ure ? When one has seen one thing, one has seen every 
thing ; O, 't is heavy work ! Don't you find it so. Ma'am? 
[gapes y yavmsj and stretches himself.] The first study of 



THE K£W gPEAl^lll. ^m 

lif^ is ease. There is, indeed, n& eihet study that pays 
the trouble of attainment. Doo't you think so, Ma'ani ? 

Miss B. But may not even that, Sir, by so mueh study 
become labor .'* 

Mr. Mead. I am vastly happy you thiiik so. 

Miss B. Sir ! 

Mr. Mead. I beg your pardon, Ma'am, but I thought 

you said 1 really beg your pardon, but I was thinking 

of something else. 

Miss B. You did very right, Sir ; [^smiling'] for what I 
said, by no means merited any attention. 

Mr. Mead. Will you do me the favor to repeat it ? \tak- 
ing his glass out to examine something at a distance. ~\ 

Miss B. O no, that would be trying your patience too 
severely. 

Mr. Mead. These glasses show one nothing but defects; 
I am sorry they were ever invented ; they are the ruin of 
all beauty ; no complexion can stand them. 

Miss B. We have excellent singing in the Pantheon, 
Sir, are you not fond of that ? 

Mr. Mead. I should be if I could hear it ; but we are 
now so miserably off in voices, that I hardly ever attempt 
to listen to a song, without fancying myself deaf from the 
feebleness of the performers. I hate every thing that re- 
quires attention. Nothing gives pleasure that does not 
forfce its own way. 

Miss B. You only then like loud voices and great pow- 
ers ? 

Mr. Mead. O worse and worse I — no, nothing is so dis- 
gusting to me. All my amazement is, that these people 
think it worth while to give concerts at all ; one is sick to 
death of music. [ Yaidns, and as he turns f torn MissBeverly, 
she steps off the stage.'] 

Enter Mr. Gosport, meeting Mr Meddows. 

Gos. Why Meadows, hovV 's this ! are you caught at 
last ? 

Mr. Mead. O worn to death ! worn to a thread ! I have 
been talkino- to a young lady to entertain her ! O such 
heavy work ! I would not go through it again for jnillions! 
Gos. What, have you talked yourself out of breath } 

Mr. Mead. No, but the effort ! the effort ! It has un- 
hinged me for a fortnight ! Entertaining a young lady ! — • 
one had better be a galley slave at once ! 



260 THE NEW 'speaker. 

Gos. Well, but did she not repay your toil? She is really 
a sweet girl. 

Mr. Mead. Nothing can repay one for such insufferable 
exertion ! though she 's well enough too — better than the 
common run — but shy, quite too shy ; no drawing her out. 

Gos. I thought that was to your taste. You commonly 
hate much volubility. How have I heard you bemoan your- 
self when attacked by Miss Larolles ! 

Mr. 3Iead. Larolles ! distraction ! she talks me into 
a fever in two minutes. But so it is forever ! nothing but 
extremes, to be met with! common girls are too forward, this 
lady is too reserved— always some fault ! always some 
drawback ! nothing, ever perfect ! 

Gos. Nay, nay. Sir, you do not know her, she is perfect 
enough in all conscience. 

Mr. Mead. Better not know her then, for she cannot 
be pleasing. Nothing perfect is natural ; — I hate every 
thing out of nature. , ^ 



KING JAMES AND RODERICK DHU. LADY OF THE LAKE. 

DRAMATIZED BY THE EDITOR. 

Scene.... A rock, with a watch-fire burning near it. A Scotch 

Highlander, wrapped in his tartan, is discovered sleeping 

by it. Enter King James in a ivarrror''s garb. 

Soldier, \_grasping his sword and springing on hisfeet.^ 
Thy name and purpose, Saxon ? — stand ! 

James. A stranger. 

Sold. What dost thou require ? 

James. Rest and a guide, and food and fire. 
My life 's beset, my path is lost. 
The gale hath chilled my limbs with frost. 

Sold. Art thou a friend to Roderick .'' 

James. No. 

Sold. Thou durst not call thyself his foe } 

James. I dare ! to him and all th« band 
He brings to aid his murderous hand. 

Sold. Bold words ! But, though the beast o«f game 
The privilege of chase may claim ; 
Though space and law the stag we lend, 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 2&1 

Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, 
Who ever cared where, how, or when 
The prowhng fox was trapped or slain ? 
Thus treacherous scouts, — ^yet sure they lie, 
Who say thou com'st a secret spy. 

James. They do, by heaven ! Come Roderick Dhu, 
And of his clan the boldest two, 
And, let me but till morning rest, 
I '11 write the falsehood on their crest. 

Sold. If by the blaze I mark aright. 
Thou bear'st the belt and spur of knight. 

James. Then by these tokens may'st thou knaw 
Each proud oppressor's mortal foe. 

Sold. Enough, enough ! sit down and share 
A soldier's couch, a soldier's fare. 

[^They sit down and eat together.^ and in a few minutes the sol- 
dier continttes the conversation.~\ 

Sold. Stranger, I am to Roderick Dhu 
A clansmen born, a kinsman true j 
Each word against his honor spoke 
Demands of me avenging stroke. 
It rests with me to wind my horn, 
Thou art with numbers overborne ; 
It rests with me, here, brand to brand. 
Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand ; 
Rut not for clan, nor kindred's cause^ 
Will I depart from honor's laws. 
To assail a wearied man were shame 
And Stranger is a holy name. 
Guidance and rest, and food and fire 
In vain he never must require. 
Myself will guide thee on the way,. 
Through watch and ward till break of dayy 
As far as Coilantogle ford ; 
From thence thy warrant is thy sword. 

James. I take thy courtesy, by Heaven, 
As freely as 't is nobly given. 

Sold. Why seek these wilds, traversed by feWj^, 
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu ? 

James. Brave man, my pass, in danger triedj. 
Hangs in my belt, and by my side. 
Yet sooth to tell, though nought I dread. 



262 tse^^ new speaker: 

I dreamed not now to claim itis aid. 
When here but three days since I cafiie^ 
Bewildered in pursuit of gaffie^ 
All seemed as peaceful and as still, 
As the mist slumbering on y on hill. 
Thy dangerous chief was then afar, 
Nor soon expected back from war ; 
Thus said, at least, my mountain guide, 
Tho' deep, perchance, the villain lied. 

Sold. Yet, why a second venture try .'' 

James. A warrior thou and ask me why I 
Perhaps I sought to drive away 
The lazy hours of peaoeful day ; 
Slight cause will then suffice to guide 
A knight's free footsteps far and wide ; 
A falcon flown, a grey-hound strayed, 
The merry glance of mountain maid ; 
Or, if a path be dangerous known, 
The danger's self is lure alone. 

Sold. Thy secret keep ; I urge thee not, 
Yet, ere again you sought this spot, 
Say, heard you not of lowland war, 
Against Clan Alpine raised by Mar } 

James. No, by my word ; of bands prepared 
To guard king James's sports I heard ; 
Nor doubt I aught, but, when they hear 
This muster of the mountaineer, 
Their pennons will abroad be flung. 
Which else in Donne had peaceful hung. 

Sold. Free be they flung ! for we were loath 
Tlieir silken folds should feed the moth. 
Free be they flung ! as free shall wave 
Clan Alpine's pine in banner brave: 
But, stranger, peaceful since you carne. 
Bewildered in the moufttain gaiiie. 
Whence the bold boa^by which you ktioW 
Vich Alpine's vowed and mortal foe ? 

James. Warrior, but^y ester morn, I knew 
Nought of thy chieftain, Rdderick Dhu, 
Save as an exiled, desperate mati. 
The chief of a rebellious clan. 
Who, in the legent's court and sight^ 



With ruffian dagger stabbed a knjght. 
Yet this alone should from his part 
Sever each true and lo^al heart. 

Sold, [froivning and both rising hastily.'] And h^nrd'st 
thou ivhy he drew his blade ? 
Heard'st thou, that shameful word and blpw 
Brought Roderick's vengeance on his foe ? 
What recked the chieftain, if he stood 
On highland heath or Holy Rood ? 
He rights such wrong where it is given, 
Though it were in the court of heaven. 

James. Still it was outrage ; yet 't is true, 
Not then claimed sovereignty his due. 
The young king, mewed in Sterling tower, 
Was stranger to respect and power. 
But then thy chieftain's robber life. 
Winning mean prey by causeless strife. 
Wrenching from ruined lowland swain 
His flocks and harvest reared in vain — 
Methinks a soul, like thine, should scorn 
The spoils from such foul conflict borne. 

Sold. Saxon, from yonder mountain high, 
I marked thee send dehghted eye. 
O'er waving fields and pastures green. 
With gentle slopes, and groves between ; 
These fertile plains, that softened vale 
Were once the birthright of the Gael. 
The Saxons came with iron hand. 
And from our fathers reft the land. 
Where dwell we now ? see rudely swell 
Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell. 
Ask we this savage hill we tread. 
For fattened steer, or household bread ; 
Ask we for flocks these shingles dry. 
And well the mountain might reply, 
•^ To you as to your sires of yore, 
Belong the target and claymore ! 
I give you shelter in my breast, 
Your own good blades must do the rest.' 
Pent in this fortress of the north, 
Think'st thou we will not sally forth 
To spoil the spoiler as we may. 



^64 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

And from the robber rend the prey ? 
Ay, by my soul ! while on yon plain 
The Saxon rears one shock of grain ; 
While of ten thousand herds, there strays 
But one along yon river's maze— 
The Gael, of plain and river heir, 
Shall, with strong hand, redeem his share. 
Where live the mountain chiefs who hold 
That plundering lowland field and fold 

Is ought but retribution due ?- 

Seek other cause 'gainst Roderick Dhu. 

James. — — ' — - — And if I sought, 

Think'st thou no other could be brought ? 
What deem ye, of my path way-laid, 
My life given o'er to ambuscade ? 

Sold.^ As a reward to rashness due ; 
Hadst thou sent warning fair and true. 
Free hadst thou been to come and go ; 
But secret path marks secret foe. 

James. Well, let it pass ; nor will I now 
Fresh cause of enmity avow. 
To chafe thy mood and cloud thy brow. 
Enough, I am by promise tied 
To match me with this man of pride. 
Twice have I sought Clan Alpine's glen 
In peace ; but, when I come again, 
I come with banner, brand, and bow. 
As leader seeks his mortal foe. 
For love-lorn swain, in lady's bower, 
Ne'er panted for the appointed horn- 
As I, until before me stand 
This rebel chieftain and his band. 

Sold. Have then thy wish, {he whistles, and soldiers 
rush in on all sides.] How say'st thou now ? 
These are Clan Alpine's warriors true ; 

And Saxon 1 — am Roderick Dhu. 

[^King James starts back a little, then draws his sword and 
places his back against the rock.] ^ • 

James. Come one, come all ! this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I. 

^Roderick leaves his hand and the soldiers retire.] 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 26S 

Rod. Fear not, nay, that I need not say, 
But doubt not ought from mine array. 
Thou art my guest, I pledged my word 
As far as Coilantogle ford. 
So move we on ; I only meant 
To show the reed on which you leant, 
Deeming this path you might pursue 
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu, 
Bold Saxon ! to his promise just, 
Vich Alpine shall discharge his trust. 
This murderous chief, this ruthless man, 
This head of a rebellious clan. 
Will lead thee safe through watch and ward, 
Far past Clan Alpine's outmost guard. 
Then man to man, and steel to steel, 
A chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel. 

James. — I ne'er delayed 

When fbeman bade me draw my blade ; 
Nay, more, brave chief, I vowed thy death ; 
Yet jfare thy fair and generous faith. 
And my deep debt for life preserved 
A better meed have w-ell deserved ; 
Can nought but blood our feud atone ? 
Are there no means ! 

Rod. No, stranger, none ! 

James. Nay, first to James at Sterling go. 
When, if thou wilt be still his foe. 
Or if the king shall not agree 
To grant thee grace and favor free, 
I plight mine honor, oath, and word. 
That to thy native holds restored. 
With each advantage shalt thou stand. 
That aids thee now to guard thy land. 

Rod. Thy rash presumption now shall rue 
The homage named to Roderick Dhu. 
He yields not, he, to man nor fate — 
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate ! 
My clansmen's wrongs demand revenge 
Not yet prepared ; by Heaven ! I change 
My thought, and hold thy valor light 
As that of some vain carpet knight, 
23 



^6 THE NEW SPEAItER. 

Who ill deserved my courteous care, 
And whose best boast is but to wear 

A braid of his fair lady's hair, ^pointing to a braid orl 
Jameses breast.'] 
James. I thank thee, Roderick, for the word ; 
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword, 
I had it frc-ai a frantic maid 
By thee dishonored and betrayed ; 
And I have sworn the braid to stain 
In the best blood that warms thy vein. 
Now truce, farewell ! and ruth, be^rone ! 
I heed not that my strength is worn — 
Thy word 's restored ; and if thou wilt, 
We try this quarrel, hilt to hilt. 



LOCHIEL. CAMPBELL. 

[To explain the follov/ing beautiful piece, it may be necessary to mentioii 
that Lochiel, a highland chieftain, while on his march to join the stand- 
ard of the Pretender, was met by one of the highland Seers or prophets,- 
who, having the gift of second sight or prophecy, warns him to return 
and not incur the certain ruin which awaited the unfortunate prince and 
his followers at the battle which took place on the field of Cullo'den.] 

Seer, [with his eyes fixed as though beholding future 
events.'] Lochiel ! Lochiel ! beware of the day 
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array ! 
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, 
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight ; 
They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown ; 
Wo, wo to the riders that trample them down ! 
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, 
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain — 
But hark ! through the fast flashing lightning of war. 
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far ? 
'T is thine, O Glenullin ! whose bride shall await, 
Like a love lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. 
A steed comes at morning ; no rider is there ; 
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. 
Weep, Scotland, to deatli and captivity led ! 
O weep, but thy tears cannot number the dead ; 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 267 

For a merciless sword on Gulloden shall wave, 
Culloden ! that reeks with the blood of the brave. 

Lochiel. Go, preach to the coward, thou death telling 
seer ! 
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, 
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight 
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright. 

Seer. Ha ! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn ? 
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn ! 
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth. 
From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the north ? 
Lo i the death shot of foemen oulspeeding, he rode 
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad ; 
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high ! 
Ah ! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh. 
Why flames the far summit ? Why shoot to the blast 
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast ? / 

'T is the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven 
From his eyrie that beacons the darkness of heaven 
Oh, crested Lochiel ! the peerless in might. 
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, 
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn : 
Return to thy dwelling ! all lonely return ! 
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood. 
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood. * 

Lochiel. False wizard, avaunt ! I have marshalled my 
clan — 
Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one ! 
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, 
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. 
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock ! 
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock ! 
But wo to his kindred, and wo to his cause. 
When Scotland her claymore indignantly draws ; 
When her bonnetted chieftains to victory crowd, 
Clan Ronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud : 
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array 

Seer. Lochiel ! Lochiel ! beware of the day ! 

For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal. 
But man cannot cover what God would reveal. 
'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before. 



268 THE NEW SPEAKER: 

I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring 

With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king:. 

Lo ! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, 

Behold, where he flies on his desolate path ! 

]Vow in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight } 

Rise ! rise !. ye wild tempests, and cover his flight ! — 

'T is finished. Their thunders are hushed on the raoors^ 

Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. 

But where is the iron-bound prisoner .'' Where ! 

For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. 

Say, mounts he the ocean wave, banished, forlorn. 

Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn ? 

Ah no ! for a darker departure is near, — 

The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier , 

His death bell is tolling ! Oh mercy ! dispel 

Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell ! 

Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs. 

And his blood streaming nostril in agony swims. 

Accursed be the faggots, that blaze at his feet, 

Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, 

With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale 

Lochiel. Down, soothless insulter ! I trust not the tale„. 
Though my perishing ranks should be strowed in their- 

gore, 
Like ocean weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, 
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, 
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, 
Shall, victor, exult, — or in death be laid low, 
With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe ! 
And leaving in battle no blot on his name, 
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame. 



THE DEAD MOTeER. ATHENiEUM. 

Father and Child. 
F. Touch not thy mother, boy — Thou canst not wake 
her. 

C. Why, father ? She still wakens at this hour., 
F. Your mother 's dead, my child,. 
C. And what is dead ? 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 269 

If she he dead, why, then 't is only sleeping. 
For I am sure she sleeps. Come mother, — rise— • 
Her hand is very cold ! 

F. Her heart is cold. 
Her limbs are bloodless, would that mine were so ! 

C. If she would waken, she would soon be warm. 
Why is she wrapt in this thin sheet ? If I; 
This winter morning, were not covered better, 
I should be cold like her. 

F, No — not like her: 
The fire might warm you^ or thick clothes — but her — 
Nothing can warm again ! 

C. If I could wake her, 
She would smile on me as she always does. 
And kiss me. Mother ! you have slept too long — 
Her face is pale — and it would frighten me, 
But that I know she loves me. 

F. Come, my child. 

C Once, when I sat upon her lap, I felt 
A beating at her side, and then she said 
It was her heart that beat and bade me feel 
For my own heart, and they both beat alike. 
Only mine was the quickest — 
And I feel my own heart yet — but her's — -I cannot feel — 

F. Child ! child ! — you drive me mad — ^^Come hence, I 
say. 

C. Nay, father, be not angry ! let me stay here 
Till my mother wakens. 

F. I have told you. 
Your mother cannot wake — ^not in this world — 
But in another she will wake for us. 
When we have slept like her, then we shall see her, 

C. Would it were night then ! 

P. No, unhappy child ! 
Full many a night shall pass, ere thou canst sleep 
That last, long sleep. — Thy Father soon shall sleep itj 
Then wilt thou be deserted upon earth : 
None will regard thee ; thou wilt soon forget 
Thou hadst natural ties, — an orphan lone, 
Abandoned to the wiles of wicked men, 
And women still more wicked. 

C. Father ! Father ! 
23* 



270 THU 1SEW SPEAKEK. 

Why do you look so terribly upon me, 
You will not h«rt me ? 

F. Hurt thee, darling ? no ! 
Has sorrow's violence so much of anger. 
That it should firight my boy ^ Come, dearest, come. 

C. You are not angry then ? 

F. Too well I love you. 

C. All you have said i cannot now remember, 
Nor what it meant — ^you terrified me so. 
But this I know, you told me, I must sleep 
Before my mother wakens — so, to-morrrow — 
Oh father ! that to-morrow were b«t come i 



LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. ABRIDGED FROM THE ATLANTIC 

SOUVENIR FOR 1828. 

Dialogue betioeen Mary and her Chramimother. 

Mary. She was, indeed, a pretty little creature. 
So meek, so modest ; what a pity, madam. 
That one so young and innocent, should fall 
A prey to the ravenous wolf ! 

Gd. M. The wolf, indeed ! 
You 've left the nursery to but little purpose. 
If you believe a wolf could ever speak, 
Though, in the time of -^sop, or before. 

M. Was 't not a wolf then ? I have read the story 
A hundred times : and heard it told : nay, told it 
Myself, to my younger sisters, when we 've shrunk 
Together in the sheets, from very terror, 
And with protecting arms, each round the other, 
E'en sobbed ourselves to sleep. But I remember, 
I saw the story acted on the stage 
And so it was a robber not a wolf, 
That met poor Little Riding Hood in the wood ? 

G. Nor wolf, nor rohber, child : this nursery tale 
Contains a hidden moral. 

M. Hidden ! nay, 
I'm not so young, Imt I can spell it out,— 
And this it is : children, when sent on errands. 
Must never stop by the way to talk with wolves. 



THE NEW SPEAKEE. Sin 

G. Tut, wolves again : wilt listen to me, child ? 

M. Say on, dear grandma, 

G. Thus then, dear my daughter : 
In this young person, culling idle flowers. 
You see the peril that attends the maiden 
Who, m her walk through life, yields to temptation, , 
And quits the onward path to stray aside. 
Allured by gaudy weeds. 

M. JVay, none but children, 
Could gather Butter-cups and May-weed, mother. 
But violets, dear violets — methinks 
I could live ever on a bank of violets, 
Or die most happy there. 

G. You die, indeed! 
At your years die I But we neglect our lecture 
Upon this picture. 

M. Poor Red Riding Hood ! 
We had forgotten her : yet mark, dear madam, 
How patiently the poor thing waits our leisure. 
And now the hidden moral. 

G. Thus it is ! 
Mere children read such stories literally. 
But the more elderly and wise, deduce 
A moral from the fiction. In a word. 
The wolf that you must guard against is love. 

M. I thought love was an infant. 

G. The world and love were young together, child, 
And innocent — alas ! time changes all things. 

M. True, I remember, love is now a man. 
And, the song says, ^ a very saucy one '-^ 
But how a wolf ? 

G. In ravenous appetite, 
Unpitying and unsparing, passion is oft 
A beast of prey. As the wolf to the lamb, 
Is he to innocence. 

M. I shall remember, 
For now I see the moral. Trust me, madattij 
Should I e'er meet this wolf love in my way. 
Be he a boy or man, I'll take good heed. 
And hold no converse with him. 

Gr. You '11 do wisely. 

M. Nor e'en in field of forest, plain br pathway. 



272 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Shall he from me know whither I am going, 
Or whisper that he '11 meet me. 

G. That 's my child. 

M. Nor in my graudam's cottage, nor elsewhere, 
Will I e'er lift the latch for him myself, 
Or bid him pull the bobbin. 

G. Well, my dear, 
You 've learned your lesson. 

M. Yet one thing, my mother. 
Somewhat perplexes me. 

G. Say what my love .'' 
I will explain. 

M. This wolf, the story goes. 
Deceived poor grandam first, and ate her up ; 
What is the moral here ? Have all our grandams 
Been devoured by love ? 

G. Let us go in ; 
Tljie air grows cool — you are a forward chit. 



TOLERATION INQUISITOR AND NATHAN. ANONYMOUS. 

ALTERED BY THE EDITOR. 

Inquis. Let the accused stand forth, and say, if aught 
He can, why sentence should not be pronounced 
On him, as on a heretic confessed. 
Say, art thou still obdurate, still resolved 
To resist the light of truth, or willing 
To receive it I I wil4 again propose 
The question, and on the answer 
Rests thy life. Say, of the various faiths 
That fill the world, which faith alone is true ? 

jyathan. Permit me ere I answer, to relate 
A tale which has some bearing on the case. 

Inquis. I '11 hear it, so it be brief and to the point. 

JS'athan. In days of yore there dwelt in the East a man, 
Who from a valued hand received a ring 
Of endless worth : the stone of it an opal, 
That shot an ever-changing tint ; moreover, 
It had the hidden virtue him to render 
Of God and man beloved, who, in this view, 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 275 

And this persuasion, wore it. Was it strange 
The Eastern man ne'er drew it off his finger, 
And studiously provided to secure it 
Forever to his house. Thus he bequeathed it, 
First, to the most beloved of his sons. 
Ordained that he again should leave the ring 
To the most dear among his children ; and 
That, without heeding birth, the favorite son. 
In virtue of the ring alone, should always 
Remain lord of the house. You hear me. Sir. 

Inquis. I understand thee — on. 

JVathan. From son to son, 
At length this ring descended to a father. 
Who had three sons, alike obedient to him ; 
Whom therefore he could not but love alike. , 

At times seemed this, now that •, at times, the third, 
Accordingly as each apart received 
The overflowings of his heart, most worthy 
To heir the ring, which, with good-natured weaknesSy- 
He privately to each in turn had promised. 
This went on for a while ; but death approached, 
And the good father grew embarrassed. So 
To disappoint two sons^ who trust his promise, 
He could not bear. What 's to be done ? He sends 
In secret for a jeweller, of whom. 
Upon the model of the real ring, 
He might bespeak two others, and commanded 
To spare nor cost nor pains to make them like. 
Quite like, the true one. This the artist managed. 
The rings were brought, and e'en the father's eye 
Could not distinguish which had been the model. 
Quite overjoyed, he summons all his sons. 
Takes leave of each apart, on each bestows 
His blessing and his ring, and dies.— Thou hearest me ? 

Inquis. I hear, I hear, come finish with thy tale ; 
Is it soon ended } 

JVathan. It is ended. Sir, 
For all that follows may be guessed of course. 
Scarce is the father dead, each with his ring 
Appears, and claims to be the lord o' the house. 
Comes question, strife, complaint — all to no end, 
For the true ring could no more be distinguished 
Than now can — the true faith. 



274 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Inquis. How, how ! is that 
To be the answer to xxiy query ? 

JVathan. No, 
Bat it may servfe as my apology, 
If I can't venture to decide between 
Rings which my father got expressly made. 
That they might not be known from one another. 

Inquis. The rings. — Don't trifle with me ; I must think 
That the rehgion I defend can be 
Distinguished well in each essential point. 

JVathan. And only not as to their grounds of proof 
Are not all built alike on history. 
Traditional or Ayritten. History 
Must be received on trust — is it not so ? 
In whom now are we likeliest to put trust ? 
In our own people surely ; in those men 
Who think like us, — in them, who from our childhood 
Have given us proofs of love, who ne'er deceived us, 
Unless 't were wholesomer to be deceived. 
How can I less believe in my forefathers 
Than thou in thine. How can I ask of thee 
To own that thy forefathers falsified. 
In order to yield mine the praise of truth. 

Inquis. By Heaven ! 
The man is right : I must be silent. 

Nathan. Now let us to our rings return once more. 
I said the sons complained. Each to the judge 
Swore from his father's hand immediately 
To have received the ring, (as was the case,) 
After he had long obtained the father's promise 
One day to have the ring (as also was.) 
The father, each asserted, could to him 
Not have been false ; rather than to suspect 
The father's truth, willing as he might be 
With charity to judge his brethren, he 
Of treacherous forgery was bold to accuse them. 

Inquis. Well, and the judge — I 'm eager now to hear 
What thou wilt make him say. Go on, go on. 

JVathan. The judge said, if ye summon not the father 
Before my seat, I cannot give a sentence. 
Am I to guess enigmas ? Or expect ye 
That the true ring should here unseal its lips ? 
But hold — you tell me that the real ring 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 276 

llnjoys the hidden power to make the wearer 

Of God and man beloved ; let that decide. 

Which of the three doth love the others best ? 

You 're silent. Do these love exciting rings 

Act inward only, not without ; does each 

Love but himself? You are all deceived, deceivers^ 

None of your rings is true. The real ring 

Perhaps is gone : — to hide or to supply 

Its loss your father ordered three for one. 

Inquis. O, charming, charming ! 

JVathan. And, the judge continued, 
If you will take advice, instead of sentence. 
This is my counsel to you — to take up 
The matter where it stands — If each of you 
Has had a ring presented by his father. 
Let each believe his own the real ring. 
'T is possible the father chose no longer 
To tolerate the one ring's tyranny ; 
And certainly as he much ioved you all. 
And loved you all alike, it could not please him. 
By favoring one to be of two the oppressor. 
Let each feel honored by this free affection, 
Unwarped of prejudice ; let each endeavour 
I'o vie with both his brothers in displaying 
The virtue of his ring ; assist its might 
With gentleness, benevolence, forbearance. 
With inward resignation to the Godhead. 
And if the virtues of the ring continue 
To show themselves among your children's child renj 
After a thousand thousand years, appear 

Before this judgment seat -a greater one 

Than I shall sit upon it and decide. — 
So spake the modest judge. 

Inquis. And so speak I. Go, live in peace. 



^76 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

LITERARY VANITY. DRAMATIZED FROM THE NOVEL OF LE 

SAGE.— -EDITOR. 

Cril Bias* and the Old Archbishop. 
Arch. Well, young - man, what is your business with 



me 



Gil. B. I am the young man whom your nephew, Don 
Fernando, was pleased to mention to you. 

Jlrch. O ! you are the person then, of whom he spoke 
so handsomely. I engage you in my service, and consider 
you a valuable acquisition. From the specimens he show- 
ed me of your powers, you must be pretty well acquainted 
with the Greek and Latin authors. It is very evident your 
education has not been neglected. I am satisfied with 
your handwriting, and still more with your understanding. 
I thank my nephew, Don Fernando, for having given me 
such an able young man, whom I consider a rich acquisi- 
tion. You transcribe so well you must certainly be a 
critic. Tell me, ingenuously, my friend, did you find 
nothing that shocked you in writing over the homily I sent 
you on trial ? some neglect, perhaps, in style, or some im- 
proper term .'' 

Gil. B. O ! Sir^ I am not learned enough to make criti- 
cal observations, and if I was, I am persuaded the works 
of your Grace would escape my censure. 

Jlrch Young man, you are disposed to flatter ; but tell 
me, which parts of it did you think most strikingly beau- 
tiful. 

Gil B. If, where all was excellent, any parts were parti- 
cularly so, I should say they were the personification of 
hope, and the description of a good man's death. 

Arch. I see you have a delicate knowledge of the truly 
beautiful. This is what I call having taste and sentiment. 
Gil Bias, henceforth give thyself no uneasiness about thy 
fortune, I will take care of that. I love thee, and as a 
proof of my aflfection, I will make thee my confidant : yes, 
my child, thou shalt be the repository of my most secret 
thoughts. Listen with attention to what I am going to 
say. My chief pleasure consists in preaching, and the 

* In this name, the g has the sound of z in a-zure ; the a is sounded as 
in )6«r,— and the s is silent. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 277 

Lord g'ives a blessing to my homilies ; but I confess my 
weakness. The honor of being thought a perfect orator 
has charmed my imagination, my performances are thought 
equally nervous and delicate ; but I would of all things 
avoid the fault of good authors, who write too long. 
Wherefore, my dear Gil Bias, one thing that I exact 
of thy zeal, is, whenever thou shalt perceive my pen 
smack of old age, and my genius flag, don't fail to adver- 
tise me of it, for I don't trust to my own judgement, which 
may be seduced by self-love. That observation must 
proceed from a disinterested understanding, and I make 
choice of thine, which I know is good, and am resolved to 
stand by thy decision. 

Gil B. Thank Heaven, Sir, that time is far off. Besides, 
a genius like that of your grace, will preserve its vigor 
much better than any other, or to speak more justly, will 
be always the same. I look upon you as another Cardinal 
Ximines, whose superior genius, instead of being weaken- 
ed, seemed to acquire new strength by age. 

Arch. No flattery, friend, I know I am liable to sink all 
at once. People at my age begin to feel infirmities, and 
the infirmities of the body often aflect the understanding. 
I repeat it to thee again, Gil Bias, as soon as thou shalt 
judge mine in the least impaired, be sure to give me no- 
tice. And be not afraid of speaking freely and sincerely, 
for I shall receive thy advice as a mark of thy affection. 

Gil B. Your grace may always depend upon my fidelity. 

Arch. I know thy sincerity, Gil Bias ; and now tell me 
plainly, hast thou not heard the people make some remarks 
upon my late homilies ? 

Gil B. Your homilies have always been admired, but it 
seems to me that the last did not appear to have had so 
powerful an effect upon the audience as former ones. 

Arch. How, Sir, has it met with any Aristarchus ? * 

Cril B. No, Sir, by no means, such works as yours are 
not to be criticised ; every body is charmed with them. 
Nevertheless, since you have laid your injunctions upon 
me to be free and sincere, I will take the liberty to tell 
you that your last <liscourse, in my judgement, has not al- 

* Aristarchus was a celebrated grammarian of Samos, who dared to criti- 
cise the poems of Homer, the prince of poets, with great severity, and 
hence a presuming critic was ever afterwards called an Aristarchus. 

24 



278 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

together the energy of your other performances. Did you 
not think so. Sir, yourself ? 

^rch. So, then, Mr. Gil Bias, this piece is not to your 
taste ? 

Gil B. I don't say so, Sir, I think it excellent, although 
a little inferior to your other works. 

Jlrch. I understand you ; you think I flag, don't you ? 
Come, be plain ; you believe it is time for me to think of 
retiring. 

GilB. I should hot have been so bold as to speak so 
freely, if your Grace had not commanded me ; I did no 
more, therefore, than obey you ; and I most humbly beg 
that you will not be offended at my freedom. 

Arch. God forbid ! God forbid that I should find fault 
with it. I don't at all take it ill that you should speak 
your sentiments, it is your sentiment itself that I find bad. 
I have been most egregiously deceived in your narrow un- 
derstanding. 

Gil B. Your Grace will pardon me for obeying 

Jlrch. Say no more, child, you are yet too raw to 
make proper distinctions. Be it known to you, I never 
composed a better homily, than that which you disap- 
prove ; for, my genius, thank Heaven, hath, as yet, lost 
nothing of its vigor : henceforth I will make a better 
choice of a confidant. Go ! go, Mr. Gil Bias, and tell 
my treasurer to give you a hundred ducats, and may 
Heaven conduct you with that sum. Adieu, Mr. Gil 
Bias ! I wish you all manner of prosperity, — with a little 
more taste. 



THE FRENCH COOK.- — SAYINGS AND DOINGS. 

[Col. Arden was preparing to take aspendid house in London, and had 
ordered his servant to look out for a first rate cook for his new establish- 
ment- When Rissolle was introduced, the Colonel was puzzled to find 
out what could be his particular profession. He saw a remarkably gentle- 
manly looking man, his well-tied neckcloth, his well-trimmed whiskers, 
his white kid gloves, his glossy hat, his massive gold chain, to which was 
suspended a repeater, all pronouncing the man of ton j and when the ser- 
vant announced the ring fingered gentleman before him as willing to dress 
a dinner on trial, for the purpose of displaying his skill, he was thunder- 
struck.] 

Col. Do I mistake ? I really beg pardon — it is fifty-eight 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 279 

years since I learned French — Am I speaking to a^ — r— a 
cook ? 

Ris. Oui, Monsieur^ I believe I have de first reputation 
inde profession ; I live four years wiz]de Marquee de Ches- 
ter, and Je me Jiatte dat if I had not turn him off last 
months, I should have supervise his cuisine at dis mo^ 
ment. 

Col. O, you have discharged the Marquis, Sir ? 

Ris. Yes, 'tnon Col-o-nel, I discharge him, because he 
cast affront upon me, insupportable to an artist of senti- 
ment. 

Col. Artist ! 

Ros. Mon Colonel, de marquee had de mauvais ffout, one 
day, when he have large partie to dine, to put salt into de 
soup, before all de compagnie. 

Col. Indeed ! and may I ask, is that considered a crime, 
Sir, in your code ? 

Ris. I don't know cod ; you mean morue ? dat is salt 
enough widout. 

Col. I dont mean thaty Siv. I ask, is it a crime for a 
gentleman to put more salt into his soup ? 

Ris. Not a crime mon Col-o-nel, mais it would be de 
ruin of me, as cook, should it be known to de world. So I 
told his lordship I must leave him, for de butler had said, 
dat he saw his lordship put de salt into de soup, which was 
proclamation to de univairse dat I did not know de proper 
quantite of salt for season my soup. 

Col. And you left his lordship for that ? 

Ros. Oui, Sare, his lordship gave me excellent charactair. 
I go afterw^ards to live wiz my Lor Trefoil, very respecta- 
ble man, my lor, of good family, and very honest man, I 

believe but de king, one day, made him his governor 

in Ireland, and I found I could not live in dat deveel Dub- 
lin. 

Col. No ? 

Ros. No 7non Col-o-nel, it is fine city, good place — but 
no opera. 

Col. How shocking ! and you left his Excellency on 
that account ? 

Ros. Old, mon Col-o-nel. 

Col. Why his Excellency managed to live there without 
an opera. 



280 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Ros. Yes, mon Col-o-nel, c^est vrai, but I tink he did not 
know dere was none when he took de place. I have de 
charactair from my lor to state why I leave him. 

Col. And, pray, Sir, whait wages do you expect ? 

Ros. Wages ! Je nhntend pasy mpn Col-o-nel ; do you 
mean de stipend — de salaire .'' «• 

Col. As you please. 

Ros. My Lor Trefoil give to me seven hundred pounds 
a year, my wine, and horse and tilbury,, wid small tigre for 
him. 

Col. Small what ! Sir .'' 

Ros. Tigre. — little man-boy to hold de horse. 

Col. Ah ! seven hundred pounds a year and a tiger ! 

Ros. Exclusive of de pastry, mon Col-o-nel, I neve? 
touch dat department, but I have de honor to recommend 
Jenkin, my sister's husband for de pastry, at five hundred 
pounds and his wine. O, Jenkin is dog a sheap at dat, mon 
Col-o-nel. 

Col. O, exclusive of pastry ! 

Ros. Oui, mon Col-o-nel. 

Col. Which is to. be obtained for five hundred pounds a 
year additional. Why, Sir, the rector of my parish, a 
clergyman and a gentleman, with an amiable wife and 
seven children, has but half that sum to live upon. 

Ros. Poor clergie ! mon Col-o-nel. \_Shrugging his 
shoulders.'] I pity your clergie. But den you don't con- 
sidare de science and experience dat it require to make 
de soup, de omelette 

Col. The devil take your omelette, Sir. Bo you mean 
seriously and gravely to ask me seven hundred pounds a 
year for your services ? 

Ros. Qui, vraiment, mon Col-o-nel [ Taking a pinch of 
snuff from a gold snuff-box. ~\ 

Col. Why then, Sir, I can't stand this any longer. Sev- 
en hundred pounds ! double it. Sir, and I '11 be your cook 
for the rest of my life. Good morning, Sir, [in an angry 
manner y advancing towards Rissolle, who retreats out of the 
door J] Seven hundred, pounds !. Seven hundred — mon Col- 
o-nel Rascal 



¥Mfi NEW stEAsa^. ^1 

LORD DUBERLY AND DOCTOR PANetdS'S. 

Lord D. Doctor, good morning. — Tak^ a chak, Doe- 

lor ? 

Bod. Pardon me, my Lord ; i am not ift^jlined to be 
sedentary, I would with permission ^ credos ad siderd tollere 
vultus ' — Ovid Hem ! 

Lord D. Tollery vultures! I suppose that means you 
had rather stand ? 

Dod. Ay, this is a loeoinotive morning with me. — Just 
hurried, my Lord, from the Society of Arts ; whence, I 
may say, ' I have borne my blushing honors thick upon 
me.' — Shakspeare. — Hem ! 

Lord D. And what has put your honors to the blush, 
this morning, Doctor ? 

JDod. To the blush ? — A ludicrous perversion of the 
author's meaning — He, he, he ! Hem — You shall hear, 
my Lord. ^ Lend me your ears' — Shakspeare, again. — 
Hem ! — 'T is not unknown to your Lordship, and the no 
less literary world, that the Caledonian University of Ab- 
erdeen, long since conferred upon me the dignity of 
LL. D. — and as I never beheld that erudite body, I may 
safely say, they dubbed me with a degree, from sheer con- 
sideration of my celebrity. 

Lord D. True. 

Dod. For nothing, my Lord, but my own innate modes- 
ty, could suppose the Scotch college to be swayed by one 
pound, fifteen shillings, and three pence, three farthings, 
paid on receiving my diploma, as a handsome compliment 
to the numerous and learned heads of that seminary. 

Lord D. Oh, hang it, no ; it was'nt for the matter of 
money. 

Dod. I do not think it was altogether the ' auri sacra 
fames.'' — Virgil. — Hem ! — But this very day, my Lord, at 
eleven o'clock, A. M. the Society of Arts, in conse- 
quence, as they were pleased to say, of my merits — he, 
he, he ! — have admitted me an unworthy member ; and I 
have, henceforward, the privilege of adding to my name 
the enviable title of A. double S. 

Lord D. And I make no doubt. Doctor, but you have 
rightly deserved it. I warrant a man don't get A. double 
S. tacked to his name for nothing. 
24* 



282 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Dod. Decidedly not, my Lord.— Yes, I am now Artimrt 
Societatis Socius. My two last [publications did that busi- 
ness — * Exegi monumentwn cere peremdus.^ — Horace. — 
Hem! 

Lord D. And what might these two books be about, 
Doctor ? 

Dod. The first, my Lord, was a plan to lull the restless 
to sleep by an infusion of opium into their ears :— the ef- 
ficacy of this method originally struck me in St. Stephen's 
chapel, while listening to the oratory of a worthy country 
gentleman. 

Lord D. I wonder it wasn't hit upon before by the doc- 
tors. 

Dod. Physicians, my Lord, put their patients to sleep 
in another manner. He, he, he ! — ^ to die — to sleep — no 
more.' — Shakspeare. — Hem ! — My second treatise was 
a proposal for erecting dove-houses, on a principle tend- 
ing to create the propagation of pigeons. This, I may 
affirm, has received considerable countenance from many 
who move in the circles of fashion. — * JVec gemere oessabit 
turtur.^ — Virgil. — Hem ! — I am about to publish a third 
edition by subscription. May I have the honor to pop 
your Lordship down among the pigeons ? 

Lord D. Ay, ay ; down with me. Doctor, 

Dod. My Lord, I am grateful. I ever insert names 
and titles at full length. What may be your Lordship's 
sponsorial and patronymic appellations ? 

Lord D. My what ? 

Doct.^I mean, my Lord, the designations given to you,, 
by your Lordship's god-fathers and parents. 

Lord D. Oh, what, my christian and surname ? — I was 
baptized Daniel. 

Dod. ^ Abolens baptismate ' labem.''- — I forgot, where — - 
Hem ! Tliie Right Honorable Daniel — [wrtting.'] 

Lord D. Dowias. 

Dod. [Writing.) Dowlas — ' Filthy Dow.'' Hem ! — Shak- 
speare. — The Right Honorable Daniel Dowlas, Baron 
Duberly. — And now, ray Lord, to our lesson for the day. 

Lord D. Now for it. Doctor. 

Dod. The process which we are now upon, is to eradi- 
cate that blemish in your Lordship's language, which the 
learned denominate cacology^ and which the vulgar call 
slip-slop. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. ^^S 

Lord D. I 'm afraid, Doctor, my cakelology will give you 
a tolerable tight job of it. 

Bod. ' JVil desperandum.^ Virgil— Hem ! — 'We 'M be- 
gin in the old way, my Lord. Talk on ; — v/hen you 
stumble, I check. Where was your Lordship yesterday 
evening. 

Lord D. At a Consort. 

Boct. Umph ! Tete a tele with Lady Duberly, I pre- 
sume. 

Lord B. No, tete a tete, with five hundred people, hear- 
ing music. 

Boct. Oh ! I conceive. Your Lordship would say, 
Concert. Mark the distinction. A concert, my Lord, 
is an entertainment visited by fashionable lovers of har- 
mony. Now a consort is a wife ; little conducive to har- 
mony, in the present day, and seldom visited by a man of. 
fashion, unless she happens to be his friend's or his neigh- 
bour's. 

Lord B. A striking difference, indeed ! Between you 
and I, Doctor, now my Lady 's out of hearing, a wife is 
the devil. 

Boct. He, he, he ! There are plenty of Jobs in the 
world, my Lord. 

Lord B. And plenty of Jezabels, too. Doctor. But 
patience as you say— ^for I never give my Lady no bad 
language. Whenever she gets in the tantrums, and talks 
high, I always sit mum chance. 

Boct. So spake our mother^ Eve^ and Jidam heard.^ Mil- 
ton. — Hem ! — Silence is most secure, my Lord, in these 
cases ; for, if once your Lordship opens your mouth, 'tis 
twenty to one, but bad language would follow. 

Lo7xl B. Oh, that 's a sure thing ; and I never like to 
3rse the women. 

Bod. Jlsperse. 

Lord D. Humph ! There 's another stumble ! — After 
all. Doctor, I shall make but a poor progress in my vermis 
cidar tongue. 

Bod. Your knowledge of our native, or vernacular 
language, my Lord, time and industry may meliorate. 
Vermicular is an epithet seldom applied to tongues, except 
in the case of puppies who want to be wormed. 

Lord D, Well, then, I a'nt so much out. Doctor ; I 've 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



met plenty of puppies, since I came to town — whosd'^ 
tongues are so very troublesome, that worming might 
chance to be of service. But, Doctor, I 've a bit of 
proposal to make to you, concerning my own family. 

Doct. Disclose, my Lord. 

Lord D. Why, you must know, I expect my son, Dicky, 
in town this here very morning. Now, Doctor, if yoi 
mend his cakelology, mayhap it might be better worth than- 
the mending of mine. H 

Doct. I smell a pupil, [aside.] Whence, my I<ord, does 
the young gentleman come ? 

Lord D. You shall hear all about it. You know, Doc- 
tor, tho' I 'm of a good family distraction 

Doct. Ex. 

Lord D. Though I 'm of a good family extraction — 'tis 
but t'other day I kept a shop at Gosport. 

Doct. The rumor has reached me. — ^ Fama volat.'' — 

Lord D. Don't put me out ! 

Doct. Virgil. — Hem ! — Proceed. 

Lord D. A tradesman, you know, must mind the main 
chance. So when Dick began to grow big as a porpoise, I 
got an old friend of mine, who lives in Derbyshire, close 
to the DeviPs-peak, to take Dick prentice, at half price^ 
He 's just now out of his time, and I warrant him, as wild 
and as rough as a rock ; now, if you Doctor — if you would 
but take him in hand, and soften him a bit 

Doct. Pray, my Lord — -' To soften rocks. "* Congreve. 
Hem ! — Pray, my Lord, what profession may the Honora- 
ble Mr. Dowlas have followed ? 

Lord D. Who, Dick ? He served his clerkship to an 
attorney, at Castleton. 

Doct. An attorney ! — Gentlemen of his profession, my 
Lord, ar© very difficult to soften. 

Lord D. Yes ; but the pay may make it worth the 
while ; I 'm told that Lord Spindle gives his eldest son, 
master Drumstick's tutorer, three hundred a-year ; and 
besides teaching his pupil, he has to read my Lord to sleep 
of an afternoon, and walk out with the lap-dogs and the 
children. Now, if three hundred a year, Doctor, will do 
the business for Dick, I sha'n't begrudge it you. 

Doct. Three hundred a-year ! — say no more, my Lord. 
LL. D.. A. double S. and three hundred a-year. — I ac- 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 285 

cept the offer. — ' Verbam Sat.^ Horace. — Hem ! — I '11 
run to my lodgings — settle with Mrs. Sudds — ^put my 
wardrobe into a — No, I 've got it all on — and — \_gomg.'] 

Lord D. Hold ! hold ! not so hasty, Doctor, I must 
first send you for Dick, to the Blue-boar ! 

Doct. The Honorable Mr. Dowlas, my pupil, at the 
Blue-boar ! 

-LortZ D. Ay, in Holborn, as I an't fond of telling peo- 
ple good news beforehand, for fear they may be balked ; 
Dick knows nothing of my being made a lord. 

Doct. Three hundred a year — I 've often wished that I 
had clear, for hfe, six — no — three, three hundred 

Lord D. I wrote him just before I left Gosport, to tell 
him to meet me in London with 

Doct. Three hundred pounds a-year. Swift. — Hem ! 

Lord D. With all speed, upon business, d'ye mind me ? 

Doct. Doctor Pangloss with an income of No lap- 
dogs, my Lord ? 

Lord D. Nay, but listen, Doctor ; and as I didn't know 
where old Ferret was to make me live in London, I told 
Dick to be at the Blue-boar this morning, by the stage- 
coach — why you don't hear what I am talking about, 
Doctor ? 

Doct. Oh, perfectly, my Lord. — A Blue-boar in a stage- 
coach, with the annuity of 

Ij)rd D. Well, step into my room. Doctor, and I '11 
give you a letter, which you shall carry to the inn, and 
bring Dick away with you. I warrant the boy will be 
ready to jump out of his skin. 

Doct. Skin ! jump ! zounds, I 'm ready to jump out of 
mine. I follow your Lordship — Oh, Doctor Pangloss, 
where 's your philosophy now .? — I attend you, my Lord — 
'■ (zqiiam memento.^ Horace. — ^ servnre mentem.^ Hem ! 
Bless me, I 'm all in a fluster ! LL. D. A. double S. 
and three hundred a 1 attend your Lordship. 



PEDANTRY ORIGINAL. 

Digit, Is your master at home. Sir. 
Drone. ISpeaking very slow] Can't say ; ^^ose hd is ; in- 
deed, I 'm sure he is, or was just now. 



286 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



Digit. Why I could solve an equation while you are an- 
swering a question of five words, — I mean if the unknown 
terms were all on one side of the equation. Can I see 
him ? 

Drone. Very likely, Sir, I will inform him that Mr. 



Digit. Digit, Digit. 

Drone. O, Mr. Digy-Digy, wishes to see him. [Exit 
Drone.^ 

Digit [■Alone.] That fellow is certainly a negative quanti^ 
ty. He is minus common sense. If this Mr. Morrell is 
the man I take him to be, he cannot but patronize my 
talents. Skould he not, I don't know how I shall obtain a 
new coat. I have worn this ever since I began to write 
my theory of sines, and my elbows have so often formed 
tangents with the surface of my table, that a new coat is 
very necessary. But here comes Mr. Morrell [Enter Ses- 
quipedalian Sir, [bowing low'] I am a your most mathemat- 
ical servant. I am sorry. Sir, to give you this trouble, but 
an affair of consequence [pulling the rags over his elbows'] 
an affair of consequence as your servant informed you — 

Sesqui. Servus non est mihi, Domine ; that is, I have no 
servant. Sir. I presume you have erred in your calcula- 
tion ; and 



Digit. No, Sir. The calculations y I am about to present 
you, are founded on the most correct theorems of Euclid. 
You may examine them if you please. They are contain- 
ed in this small manuscript, [producing a folio.] 

Sesq. Sir you have bestowed a degree of interruption 
upon my observations. I was about, or, according to the 
Latins, futurus sum, to give you a little information con- 
cerning the luminary who appears to have deceived your 
vision. My name. Sir, is Tullius Maro Titus Crispus 
Sesquipedalia, by profession a Linguist and Philosopher. 
The most abstruse points in physics or metaphysics to me 
are as transparent as ether. I have come to this house for 
the purpose of obtaining the patronage of a gentleman who 
befriends all the literati. Now, Sir, perhaps I have produc- 
ed conviction, in mente tua, that is, in your mind, that your 
calculation was erroneous. 

Digit. Yes, Sir, as to your person, I was mistaken ; but 
my calculations, I maintain, are correct to the tenth place 
of a circulating decimai, 



THE NEW SPEAKER. mi 

Sesq. But what is the subject of youi- manuscript ? Have 
you discussed the infinite divisibility x)f matter ? 

Digit. No, Sir, I cannot reckon infinity ; and I have 
nothing to do with subjects that cannot be reckoned. 

Sesq. Why, I can reckon about it. I reckon it is divisi* 
ble ad infinitum. But perhaps your work is upon the mate- 
riality of light ? and if so, which side of the question do 
you espouse ! 

Digit, O, Sir, I think it quite immaterial. 

Sesq. What ! light immaterial ! Do you say light is im- 
material ? 

Digit. No, I say it is quite immaterial which side of 
the question I espouse. I have nothing to do with it. And 
besides T am a bachelor, and do not mean to espouse any 
thing at present. 

Sesq. Do you write upon the attraction of cohesion ? 
You know matter has the properties of attraction and re- 
pulsion. 

Digit. I care nothing, about matter, so I can find 
enough for mathematical demonstration. 

Sesq. I cannot conceive what you have written upon, 
then. O it must be the centripetal and centrifugal motions. 

Digit. lPeevishly~\. No, No. I wish Mr. Morrell would 
come. Sir, I have no motions but such as I can make 
with my pencil upon my slate thus. [^Figuring upon Ms 
hand] six, minus four, plus two, equal eight, minus six, plus 
two. There, those are my motions. 

Sesq. O I perceive you grovel in the depths of arithme- 
tic. I suppose you never soared into the regions of philo- 
sophy. You never thought of the vacuum which has so 
so long filled the heads of philosophers ? 

Digit. Vacuum I [Putting his hand to his forehead ? 
Let me think. 

Sesq. Ha I what ! have you got it sub manu, that is, un- 
der your hand ! ha ! ha ! 

Digit. Eh ! under my hand .'' what do you mean. Sir, that 
my head is a vacuum ? Would you insult me, Sir ? insult 
Archimedes Digit .'' Why Sir, I '11 cipher you into infinite 
divisihility . I '11 set you on an inverted cone. I '11 give 
you a centripetal and centrifugal motion out of the window, 
Sir. I '11 tear you up by the roots, and scatter your solid 
contents. 



^m 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



Sesq. Da veniam, that is pardon me, it was merely a lap* 
sus linguce, that is-—- — - 

Digit. Well, sir, I am net fond of lapsus lingums at 
all,' Sir. However, if you did not mean to offend, I ac- 
cept your apology. I wish Mr. Morrell would come. 

Sesq. But, Sir, is your work upon mathematics } 

Digit. Yes, Sir. In this manuscript I have endeavored 
to elucidate the squaring of the circle. 

Sesq. But, Sir, a square circle is a contradiction in 
termsv You cannot make one. 

Digit. I perceive you are a novice in this sublime sci- 
ence. The object is to find a square which shall be equal 
to a given circle, which I have done by a rule drawn from 
the radii of the circle and the diagonal of the square. And 
by my rule the area of the square will equal the area of 
the circle. 

Sesq. Your terms are to me incomprehensible. Diag- 
onal is derived from the Greek. Dia and Gone, that is, 
'through the corner.' But I don't see what it has to do 
with a circle ; for if I understand aright, a circle, like a 
sphere has no corners. 

Digit. You appear to be very ignorannt of the science 
of numbers. Your life must be very insipidly spent in 
poring over philosophy, and the dead languages. You 
never tasted as I have the pleasure arising from the inves- 
tigation of a difficult problem, or the discovery of a new 
rule in quadratic equations. 

Sesq. Po ! po ! \_Turns round in disgust and hits Digit 
with his cane.'] 

Digit. O ! you villain ! 

Sesq. I wish. Sir — 

Digit. And so do I wish. Sir, that that cane was raised 
to the fourth power, and laid over your head as many times 
as there are units in a thousand. Oh ! Oh ! 

Sesq. Did my c&ne come in contact with the sphere of 
repulsion around your shin ! I must confess. Sir, [_Enter 
TriW] O here is Mr. Morrell, Salve Domine ! Sir, your 
most obedient. 

Trill. Which of you, gentlemen, is Mr. Morrell } 

Sesq. O ! neither, Sir. I took you for that gentleman. 

Trill. No, Sir, I am a teacher of music. Flute, harp, 
viol, violin, violincello, organ,_^or any thing of the kind, 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 289 

any instrument you can mention. I have just been dis- 
playing my powers at a concert, and come recommended to 
the patronage of Mr. Morrell. 

Sesq. For the same purpose are that gentleman and my- 
self here. 

Digit. \^Still rubbing his shin] Oh ! oh ! 

Trill. Has the gentleman the gout ? I have heard of its 
being cured by music. Shall I sing you a tune ? Hem ! 
Hem ! Faw 

Digit. No, no, I want none of your tunes. I 'd make 
that philosopher sing though and dance too, if he had 'nt 
made a vulgar fraction of my leg. 

Sesq. In veritate^ that is, in truth, it happened/o?'f€, that 
is by chance. 

Tnll. [^Talking to himself.'] If B be flat me is in E. 

Digit. Aye, Sir, this is only an integral part of your 
conduct ever since you came into this house. You have 
continued to multiply your insults in the abstract ratio of a 
geometrical progression, and at last have proceeded to vi- 
olence. The dignity of Archimides Digit never experien- 
ced such a reduction descending j before. 

THll. [^To himself ] Twice f aw, sol, law, and then comes 
me again. 

Digit. If Mr. Morrell does not admit me soon, I '11 
leave the house, while my head is on my shoulders. 

Tnll. Gentlemen, you neither keep time nor chord. — 
But if you can sing, we will carry a trio before we go. 

Sesq. Can you sing- an Ode of Horace or Anacreon. I 
should like to hear one of them. 

Digit. I had rather hear you sing a demonstration of the 
forty-seventh proposition, first book. 

Trill. I never heard of those performers, Sir ; where do 
they belong. 

Sesq. They did belong to Italy and Greece. 

Trill. Ah ! Italy ! there are our best masters, Correlli, 
Morrelli, and Fuseli. Can you favor me with their com- 
positions ? 

Sesq. O yes, if you have a taste that way, I can furnish 
you with them, and with Virgil, Sallust, Cicero, Caesar, 
Quintilian, and I have an old Greek Lexicon which I can 
spare. 

• 25 ■ 



290 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Trill. Ad Uhitumj my dear Sir^ they will make a hand- 
some addition to my musical library. 

' Digit. But, Sir, what pretentions have you to the pa- 
tronage of Mr. Morrell ? I don't believe you can square 
the circle. 

Trill. Pretentions. Sir ! I have gained a victory over 
the great Tantamarrarra, the new opera singer, who pre- 
tended to vie with me. 'T was in the symphony of Han- 
del's Oratorio of Saul, where you know every thing de- 
pends upon the tempo giustOj and where the primo should 
proceed in smorgando and the ^econdo agitati. But he was 
on the third ledger line, I was an octave below, when with a 
sudden appoggiaiura, I rose to D in alty and conquered 
him. 

\_E7iter Drone.'] 

Drone. My master says how he will wait on you gen- 
tlemen. 

Digit. What is your name. Sir. 

Drone. Drone, at your service. 

Digit. No, no, you need not drone at my service. A 
very applicable name, however. 

Sesq. Drone ? That is derived from the Greek Draon 
flying or moving swiftly. 

Trill. He rather seems to move, in andante measure, that 
is, to the tune of Old Hundred. 

Drone. Very likely, gentlemen. 

Digit. Well, as I came first, I will enter first. 

Sesq. Right. You shall be the antecedent, I the sub- 
sequent, and Mr. Trill the consequent. 

Trill. Right, I was always a man of consequence, — 
Faw, sol, law, Faw sol, 8lc. 8lc. 



INDIGESTIO?^.— SCOTCH NEWSPAPER. 

\_Scene, Dr. Gregory'' s Study. Enter a plump Glasgow mer- 
chant.'] 
Patient. Good morning. Dr. Gregory ; I 'm just come 
into Edinburgh about some law business, and I thought 
when I was here, at any rate, I might just as weel tak 
your advice. Sir, about my trouble. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. mi 

Doctor. And pray what may your trouble be, my good 
Sir ? 

Pa. Indeed Doctor, I 'm not very sure ; but I 'm thinking 
it 's a kind of weakness that makes me dizzy at times, and 
a kind of pinkling about my stomach — I 'm just na right. 

Dr. You are from the west country, I should suppose, 
Sir ? 

Pa. Yes, Sir, from Glasgow. 

Dr. Ay ; pray, Sir, are you a glutton ? 

Pa. God forbid. Sir, I 'm one of the plainest men living 
in all the west country. 

Dr. Then perhaps you are a drunkard ? 

Pa. No, Dr. Gregory ; thank God, no one can accuse 
me of that ; I 'm of the dissenting persuasion, Doctor, and 
an elder, so ye may suppose I 'm na drunkard. 

Dr. I '11 suppose no such thing till you tell me your 
mode of life. — I 'm so much puzzled with your symptoms. 
Sir, that I should wish to hear in detail what you do eat 
and drink. When do you breakfast, and what do you take 
at it .? 

Pa. I breakfast at nine o'clock, tak a cup of coffee, and 
one or two cups of tea ; a couple of eggs, and a bit of ham 
or kippered salmon, or, may be, both, if they 're good, and 
two or three rolls and butter. 

Dr. Do you eat no honey, or jelly, or jam, at breakfast? 

Pa. O yes. Sir ; but I don't count that as any thing. 

Dr. Come, this is a very moderate breakfast. What 
kind of a dinner do you make ? 

Pa. Oh, Sir, I eat a very plain dinner indeed. Some 
soup, and some fish, and a little plain roast or boiled ; for I 
dinna care for made dishes ; I think, some way, they nev- 
er satisfy the appetite. 

Dr. You take a little pudding then, and afterwards 
some cheese } 

Pa. O yes ! though I don't care much about them. 

Dr. You take a glass of ale or porter with your cheese ? 

Pa. Yes, one or the other ; but seldom both. 

Dr. You west-country people generally take a glass of 
Highland whiskey after dinner. 

Pa. Yes, we do ; it's good for digestion. 

Dr. Do you take any wine during dinner ? 



292 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Pa. Yes, a glass or two of sherry, but I 'm indifferent 
as to wine during dinner. I drink a good deal of beer. 

Dr. What quantity of port do you drink } 

Pa. Oh, very little ; not above half a dozen glasses, or 
so. 

Dr. In the west country, it is impossible, I hear, to dine 
without punch ? 

Pa. Yes, Sir ; indeed 't is punch we drink chiefly ; but 
for myself, unless I happen to have a friend with me, I 
never take more than a couple of tumblers, or so, and that 's 
moderate. 

Dr. Oh, exceedingly moderate indeed ! You then, af- 
ter this slight repast, take some tea and bread and butter .' 

Pa. Yes, before I go to the counting-house to read the 
evening letters. 

Dr. And on your return you take supper, I suppose ? 

Pa. No, Sir, I canna be said to tak supper ; just some- 
thing before going to bed ; a rizzered haddock, or a bit of 
toasted cheese, or a half hundred of oysters or the like o' 
that, and may be, two thirds of a bottle of al? ; but I tak no 
regular supper. 

Dr. But you take a little more punch after that ? 

Pa. No, Sir, punch does not agree with me at bed time. 
I tak a tumbler of warm whiskey toddy at night ; it is_ light- 
er to sleep on. 

Pa. So it must be, no doubt. This, you say, is your 
every day life ; but upon great occasions^ you perhaps ex- 
ceed a little .'' 

Pa. No, Sir, except when a friend or tv. o dine with me, 
or I dine out, which as I am a sober family man, does 
not often happen. 

Dr. Not above twice a week ? 

Pa. No ; not oftener. 

Dr. Of course you sleep well and have a good appetite .' 

Pa. Yes, Sir, thank God, I have ; indeed, any ill health 
that I have is about meal time. 

Dr. [assuming a severe loe^k, knitting his brow^ and lower- 
ing his eyehroivs.^ Now, Sir, you are a very pretty fellow 
indeed ; you come here and tell me you are a moderate 
man ; but upon examination, I find by your own showing, 
that you are a most voracious glutton. You said you were 
a sober man, yet by your own showing you are a beer 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 293 

swiller, a dram drinker, a wine bibber, and a guzzler of 
punch. You tell me you eat indigestible suppers, and 
swill toddy to for«e sleep — I see that you chew tobacco. — 
IVow, Sir, what human stomach can stand this ? Go home, 
Sir, and leave your present course of riotous living, and 
there are hopes that your stomach may recover its tone, 
and you be in good health like your neighbors. 

Pa. I 'm sure. Doctor, I 'm very much obliged to you — 
[taking out a bunch of bank notes — I shall endeavor to 

Dr. Sir, you are not obliged to me — put up your money, 
Sir. Do you think I '11 take a fee from you for telling; you 
what you know as v/ell as myself ? Though you *re no 
physician. Sir, you are not altogether a fool. Go home, 
Sir, and reform, or take my word for it, your life is not 
worth half a year's purchase. 



THE SICK IN HIS OWr? DESPITE. TRANSLATED AND 

ALTERED FROM THE FRENCH. EDITOR. 

Volatile. Your humble servant. Sir ; walk in. Sir ; sit 
down, Sir. [bringing a chair.'] My master will wait on you 
in a moment. Sir ; he 's busy despatching some patients, 
Sir. I '11 tell him you are here. Sir. Be back in a twink- 
ling, Sir. 

Sinclair. No, no. T only wish to inquire 

Vol. Right, Sir ; you could not have applied to a more 
able physician. My master is a man that understands 
physic as fundamentally as I do my mother tongue, Sir. 

Sin. He appears to have an able advocate in you. 

Vol. I do not say this. Sir, because he is my master ; 
but 't is really a pleasure to be his patient, and I should 
rather die by his medicines, then be cured by those of any 
other ; for whatever happens, a man may be certain that 
he has been regularlij treated ; and should he die under 
the operation, his heirs would have nothing to reproach 
him for. 

Sin. That 's a mighty comfort to a dead man. 

Vol. To be sure, Sir ; who would not wish to die meth- 
odically } Besides he 's not one of those doctors who 
husband the disease of their patients. He Joves to de- 
25 =«^ 



^94 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

spatoh business, and if they are to die, he lends them a 
helping hand. 

Sin. There 's nothing like despatch in business. 

Vol. That 's true. Sir. What is the use of so much 
hemming and hawing, and beating round the bush .'' I like 
to know the long and short of a distemper at once. 

Sin. Right, undoubtedly. 

Vol. Right ! Why there were three of my children, 
whose illness he did me the honor to take care of, who all 
died in less than four days, when in another's hands they 
would have languished three months. 
\_Enter Doctor.'] 

Vol. Sir, this gentleman is desirous of consulting 

Doc. I perceive it. Sir ; he is a dying man. Do you 
eat well, Sir } 

Sin. Eat ! yes. Sir, perfectly well. 

Dr. Bad, very bad ; the epigastric region must be 
shockingly disordered. How do you drink. Sir ? 

Sin. Nobody drinks better, Sir. 

Dr. So much the worse. The great appetition of frigid 
and humid, is an indication of the great heat and aridity 
within. Do you sleep soundly ? 

Sin. Yes, always. 

Dr. This indicates a dreadful torpidity of the system ; 
and. Sir, I pronounce you a dead man. After considering 
the diagnostic and prognostic systems, I pronounce you 
attacked, affected, possessed, and disordered by that spe- 
cies of mania termed hypochondria. 

Vol. Undoubtedly, Sir. My master never mistakes, 
Sir. 

Dr. But for an incontestible diagnostic you may per- 
ceive his distempered ratiocination, and other pathognomic 
symptoms of this disorder. 

Vol. What will you order him, Sir .'' 

Dr. First, a thorough salivation. 
Vol. But should this have no effect 1 

Dr. We shall then know the disease does not proceed 
from the humors. 

Vol. What shall we try next. Sir ? 

Dr. Bleeding, ten or fifteen times, twice a day. 
Vol. If he grow worse and worse, what then ? 

Dr. It will prove the disease is not in his blood. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 295 

Vol. What application would you then recommend ? 

Dr. Mj infallible sudorific. Sweat him off five pounds 
a day, and his case cannot long remain doubtfiil. This 
you know is my regular course, and never fails to kill or 
cure. 

Vol. I congratulate the gentleman upon falling into 
your hands, Sir. He must consider himself happy in hav- 
ing his senses disordered, that he may experience the effi- 
cacy and gentleness of the remedies you have proposed. 

Sin. What does all this mean, gentlemen ? I do not un-> 
derstand your gibberish and nonsense. 

Dr. Such injurious language is a diagnostic we wanted 
to confirm our opinion of his distemper. 

Sin. Are you crazy, gentlemen ? [spits in his hand and 
raises his cane.^ 

Dr. Another diagnostic, frequent sputation. 

Sin. You had better be done, and make off*. 

Dr. Another diagnostic ! Anxiety to change place. 
We will fix you, Sir. Your disease 

Sin. I have no disease. Sir. 

Dr. A bad symptom when a patient is insensible of his 
illness. 

Sin, I am well. Sir, I assure you ; and, having lost my 
way, only called to inquire after the most direct route to 
the city. Show it to me this instant, or, by Hippocrates, 
I '11 break every bone in your skin. 



THE WILL. DRAMATIZED FROM A TALE IN THE NEW 

MONTHLY MAGAZINE. EDITOR. 

[Mr. Sivipes, brewer, and Mr. Currie, saddler.'] 

Sicipes. A SOBER occasion this, brother Currie. Who 
would have thought the old lady was so near her end ? 

Cur. Ah, we must all die, brother Swipes, and those 
who live longest outlive the most. 

Swipes. True, true, but since we must die and leave 
our earthly possessions, it is well that the law takes such 
good care of us. Had the old lady her senses when she 
departed ? 

Cur. Perfectly, perfectly. 'Squire Drawl told me she 



296 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

tead every word of her testament aloud, and never signed 
her name better. 

Swipes. Had you any hint from the 'Squire what dispo- 
sition she made of her property ? 

Cur. Not a whisper ; the 'Squire is as close as an un- 
der-ground tomb ; but one of the witnesses hinted to me 
that she has cut off her graceless nephew with a cent. 

Swipes. Has she. good soul, has she ? you know / come 
in then in right of my wife. 

Cur. And I in my own right, and this is no doubt the 
reason why v/e have been called to hear the reading of the 
will. 'Squire Drawl knows how things should be done, 
though he is as air-tight as your beer barrels. Eut here 
comes the young reprobate, he must be present as a matter 
of course, you know, \_enter Frank J\Iillmgton.~\ — Your 
servant, young gentleman. So, your benefactress has left 
you at last. 

Swipes. It is a painful thing to part with old and good 
friends, Mr. Millington, 

Frank. It is so, Sir ; but I could bear her loss better, 
had I not so often been ungrateful for her kindness. She 
was my only friend, and I knew not her value. 

Cur. It is too late to repent, Master Millington. You 

will now have a chance to earn your own bread 

. Swipes. Ay, by the sweat of your brow, as better peo- 
ple are obliged to. You would make a fine brewer's boy, 
if you were not too old. 

Cur^ Ay, or a saddler's lackey, if held with a tight rein. 

Frank. Gentlemen, your remarks imply that my aunt 
has treated me as I deserved. I am above your insults, 
and only hope you, will bear your fortune as modestly, as 
I shall mine submissively. I shall retire. \^goingj he meets 
the ''Squire.'] 

''Squire. Stop, stop, young man. We must have your 
presence. Good morning, gentlemen, you are early on 
the ground. 

Cur. I hope the 'Squire is well to-day. 

''Squire. Pretty comfortable for an invalid. 

Swipes. I trust the damp air has not affected your lungs 
again. 

^Squire. No, I believe not ; you know I never hurry. 
Slow and sure is my maxim. Well, since the heirs at law 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 297 

are all convened, I shall proceed to open the last will and 
testament of your deceased rehitive, according to law. 
[ivhile he is breaking the seal.'] 

Sivipes. It is a trying scene to leave all one's posses- 
sions, 'Squire, in this manner. 

Cur. It really makes me feel melancholy when I look 
round and see every thing but the venerable owner of 
these goods. Well did the preacher say, 'AH is vanity,' 

^Squire. Please to be seated, gentlemen. \_AU sit — The 
'Sqtcire, having put on his spectacles, begins to read in a 
drawling, nasal tone] ' Imprimis, Whereas my ne- 
phew, Francis Millington, by his disobedience and un- 
grateful conduct, has shown himself unworthy of my 
bounty and incapable of managing my large estate, I do 
hereby give and bequeath all my houses, farms, stocks, 
bonds, monies, and property, both personal and real, to 
my dear cousins, Samuel Swipes, of Malt street, brewer, 
and Christopher Currie, of Fly court, saddler. \^Squire 
takes off his spectacles to loipc them.'] 

Sivipes. [takes out his handkerchief and attempts to 
snivel.] Generous creature ! kind soul ! I always loved 
her. 

Cur. She was good, she was kind. She was in her 
right mind — Brother Swipes, when we divide, I think I 
shall take the mansion house. 

Sivipes. Not so fast, if you please, Mr. Currie. My 
wife has long had her eye upon that, and must have it. 
[both rise.] 

Cur. There will be two words to that bargain, Mr, 
Swipes. And, besides, I ought to have the first choice. 
Did not I lend her a new chaise every time she wished to 
ride ? and who knows what influence 

Sivipes. Am I not named first in her will ? and did I not 
furnish her with my best small beer for more than six 
months ? and who knows 

Frank. Gentlemen, I must leave you. [going.] 

^Squire, [loho has been leisurely wiping his spectacles, 
again puts them on, and with his calm, nasal twang, calls 
out] — Pray, gentlemen, keep your seats. I have not done 
yet. [all sit.] Let me see — where was I .'' — Ay, ' all my 
property, both personal and real, to my dear cousins, 
Samuel Swipes, of Malt street, brewer 



^98 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Swipes, [eagerly.'] Yes '. 

^Squire. * And Christopher Currie, of Fly court, sad- 
dler 

Cur. [eagerly.'] Yes ! Yes ! 

^Squire. ^ To have and to hold — in trust, for the sole and 
exclusive benefit of my nephew, Francis Millington, until 
he shall have attained to lawful age, by which time I hope 
he will have so far reformed his evil habits, as that he may 
safely be entrusted with the large fortune which I hereby 
bequeath to him,' 

Swipes. What 's all this ? You don't mean that we are 
humbugged ? In timst ! how does that appear ? Where 
is it ? 

"^Squire, [pointing to the parchment.] There — in two 
words of as good old English as I ever penned. 

Cur. Pretty well too, Mr. 'Squire, if we must be sent 
for to be made a laughing-stock of. She shall pay for 
every ride she had out of my chaise, I promise you. 

Sivipes. And for every drop of my beer. Fine times ! 
if two sober, hardworking citizens are to be brought here 
to be made the sport of a graceless profligate. But we 
will manage his property for him, Mr. Currie ; we will 
make him feel that trustees are not to be trifled with. 

Cur. That will we. — 

^Squire. Not so fast, gentlemen, for the instrument is 
dated three years ago, and the young gentleman must al- 
ready be of age, and able to take care of himself Is it 
not so, Francis ? 

Frank. It is, your worship. 

^Squire. Then, gentlemen, having attended the breaking 
of this seal, according to law, you are released from any 
further trouble in the premises. 



THE HAUNCH OF MUTTON. DRAMATIZED BY THE EDITOR. 

Sir Peter Pumpkin, Henri/, a collegian, his nepheio, and 
Billy Blewett. 
[Sir Peter present, enter Billy.] 
Sir P. Good day, Mr. Blewett ; as you sent me the 
haunch, it is but fair that you should see how it is treated 
— rather late though. [Enter Henry.] 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 299 

I should n't have waited for you, Harry. 

Har. No occasion, Sir, I am always punctual — Boileau 
says, the time a man makes a company wait is always 
spent in discovering his faults. 

Sir P. Does he ? then he 's a sensible fellow, and if 
he's a friend of yours, you might have brought him to din- 
ner with you. But you need not have made yourself such 
a dandy, Harry, merely to dine with me. 

Har. Why, Sir, as I expected the dinner to be well 
dressed for me, I thought I could not do less than return 
the compliment. 

Sir P. ha, ha, ha ! do you hear that, Billy ? not a bad 
one, was it. Faith, Harry does not go to college for noth- 
ing. Hark, there 's the clock striking five and where is 
our haunch of mutton ? Do pray, Harry, see about it — ■ 
the cook used to be punctual, and it is now a minute and a 
half past five. [Holding his watch in his hand.'] 
Har. It is coming, Sir. 

Sir P. Clever fellow, King Charles, they called him the 
mutton-eating king, did n't they ? cut ofi" his head though, 
for all that — stopped his mutton-eating, egad ! — I say, Bil- 
ly, did I tell you what I said t' other day to Tommy Day, 
the broker ? — Two minutes gone — Tommy 's a Bristol 
man, you know — Well, I went down to Bristol, about our 
ship, the Fanny, that got ashore there — so, says Tommy 
to me, when I came back, who bears the bell now at Bris- 
tol ? Why says I, the bellman to be sure, ha, ha, ha ! Who 
bears the bell at Bristol ? says he— Why, the bellman, 
says I again. Capital, was n't it .^ 
Billy. Capital ! capital ! 

Har. By the by. Sir, did you ever hear Shakspeare's re- 
ceipt for dressing a beafsteak } 

Sir. P. Shakspeare's ? no, what was it .'' 
Har. Why, Sir, he puts it into the mouth of Macbeth, 
where he makes him exclaim, ' If it were done when 't is 
done, then it were well it were done quickly.' 

Sir P. Good ! good ! But I said a better thing than 
Shakspeare, last week. You know Jack Porter, the com- 
mon council man — ugly as a horse — gives famous wine 
though — So says I, Jack, I never see your face without 
thinking of a good dinner. W^hy so } says Jack. Because, 
says I, it 's always ordinaivj, ha, ha, ha ! Why so } says 
Jack. Because, says I, it 's always ordinary ! ha, ha, ha ! 



300 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Billy. Capital ! capital ! 

Sir P. Three minutes at least ! The best side of the 
haunch should have keen gone before this. 

Har. That I beg leave to deny, for the best side is 
where there remains most to be got. 

>S^6V P. We shall have a good stimulating sauce, in our 
appetite; if no other. 

Har. There we are nearly as deficient as we were in 
the time of Lewis XIV, whose ambassador at London com- 
plained, that he had been sent among a set of barbarians, 
who had twenty religions, and only three fish sauces. 

Sir P. Give me Argyle sauce, thanks to the Duke who 
invented it. 

Har. Ay, he took the right method to keep his praise in 
our mouths. 

Sir P. Why, Billy, you seem as down in the mouth as 
the root of my tongue. But — four mmutes by my repeat- 
er — Harry, you shall say grace. You omitted it at Jack's 
yesterday. 

Har. You were in such a hurry, Sir, you forgot to ask 
me. It was but last week you called me a scafegraccy and 
I must try to deserve the epithet. 

S'rr P. You shall say grace, now, saucebox. 

Har.l have not yet taken orders. Sir Peter. 

Sir P. Yes you have, you have taken mine, so out with 
it. 

Har. Do luithout it now. Sir Peter, and when I am bish- 
op, I will give you one of twice the length. 

Sir P. Out, boy ! before that time I '11 teach you to reg- 
ulate your grace by your dish. God bless us ! what would 
become of a haunch of mutton if more than five words 
were wasted on the grace. A cold cut may stand it long- 
er to be sure. — Four minutes and — there goes the haunch! 
— Follow me, gentlemen, follow me. 



PEDIGREE. EDITOR. 

Marij. Aunt Betty ! why are you always mending that 
old picture .'* 

^iint Betty. Old picture! Miss, and pray who told you 
to call it an old picture .^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 30l> 

Mary, Pray Aunt, is it not an old picture ? I am sure it 
looks ragged enough. 

Aunt B. And pray, niece, is it not ten times more 
valuable on that account ? I wish I could ever make you 
entertain a proper respect for your family. 

Mary. Do I not respect the few that remain of them, 
and yourself among the rest ? But what has that old — what 
shall I call it, to do with our family ? 

Aunt B. It is our family coat of arms ; the only docu- 
ment which remains to establish the nobility and purity of 
our blood. 

Mary. What is purity of blood, aunt ? I am sure I over- 
heard Mrs. Pimpleton say your complexion was almost or- 
ange, and she believed it arose from some impurity of the 
blood. 

Aunt B. Tut, tut ! you hussey, I am sure my complex- 
ion will not suffer by a comparison with any of the Pimple- 
ton race. But that is neither here nor there ; it matters 
not what the complexion is, or the present state of the 
blood, provided the source is pure. Do people drink the 
less water because it filtrates through clay ? 

Mary. But what is pure s,nd noble blood, aunt ? 

Aant B. Blood, my dear, which has proceeded from 
some great and celebrated man, through the veins of many 
generations, without any mixture with vulgar blood. 

Mary. Then whom did we proceed from. Aunt Betty .? 

Aunt B. From Sir Gregory Mc Grincell, who lived in 
the time of Elizabeth, and left sons a dozen, from the 
youngest of whom, James Mc Grincell, gentleman, we 
ar e descended. 

Mary. What does a gentleman mean, aunt ? 

Aunt J^. It means one who has too high a sense of his 
ancestry to engage in any of what are vulgarly called the 
useful employments. 

Mary. It must mean a lazy man, then, I should think. 
Was he not extremely poor, axmt ? 

Aunt B. Poor ? What is poverty in the scale of nobility? 
It is the glory of our house that they have always prefer- 
red honorable poverty to disgraceful indiistry. 

Mary. Why, aunt, every body does not think as you do-. 
I heard the parson's wife say you would be a better 
Christian, and serve your Maker more faithfully, by doing 
26 



S02 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

something profitablej than by spending your time in idle-* 
ness, and depending upon the church for support. 

•Munt B. She had better mind her own business, and not 
slander her parishioners. Mighty well, indeed, if the 
descendant of Sir Gregory Mc Grincell is to be taught her 
duty to her ancestors by the the daughter of a ploughman, 
and the wife of a country parson. 

Mary. I am sure she is a very good woman, and my 
mother considers her a pattern of humility. 

Jiunt B. Did she display her humility in walking before 
me at the Deacon's funeral ? Answer me that. 

Mary. She had not the arrangement of the procession, 
Aunt. 

Aunt B. She ought to have known her place, however. 
I shall take care how I go to any more vulgar funerals to 
be insulted, I promise you. 

Mary. I cannot see what should make us better than 
our neighbors, for my mother once told me that your grand- 
father was only a hostler. 

Aunt B. Your mother takes a great deal of pains to ex- 
pose the dark spots in our escutcheon. But did she ever 
tell you that when my grandfather was engaged in that 
profession, it was customary for gentlemen to be their own 
grooms ^ No, T '11 warrant not. 

Mary. Then there is no disgrace in any employment, if 
it be only fashionable ? 

Aunt B. None at all my dear, for Count Rumford was a 
cook, and Sir Isaac Newton a spectacle maker. 

Mary. But of what use is our noble blood in this coun- 
try, Aunt, where merit alone is respected ? 

Aunt B. Merit, indeed ! and what have we to do with 
merit ? It is well enough for those of vulgar origin to pos- 
sess merit, the well-born do not need it. 

Mary. How did our great ancestor obtain his title then? 

Aunt B. O, to be sure the founder of a family must do 
something to deserve his title. 

Mary. What did Sir Gregory do } 

Aunt B. Do ! why he painted so flattering a likeness of 
Queen Elizabeth, that she knighted him immediately. 

Mary. Then he was a painter by trade .^ 

Aunt B. By trade ! the minx will drive me distracted. 
Be it known to you, miss, we have never had a tradesman 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 303 

in our family and I trust I never shall live to see it so de- 
graded. Painting was merely Sir Gregory's profession. 

Mary. I hope I shall learn in time to make the proper 
distinctions ; but I fear it will be difficult, for my mother 
always taught me to allow no other distinction than that of 
personal worth, and I must confess I do net see the pro- 
priety of any other. 

Aunt B. No, and I presume you never will, v/hile your 
mother entertains her present low ideas of menYonoi^s m- 
dustrij as she pleases to call the occupation of those who 
are mean enough to work for their living. I did hope to 
make you sensible of the dignity of your descent, but I 
now find I must look elsewhere for an heir to my invalua- 
ble legacy, this precious, precious coat of arms. 



THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER. EDITOR. 

Traveller. Do you belong to this house, friend "i 

Landlord. No, it belongs to me, I guess. 
[ The Traveller takes out his memorandum hook, aud in a 
low voice, reads what he writes.^ 

Trav. Mem. Yankee landlords do not belong to their 
houses. \jMoud.'] You seem young for a landlord, may I 
ask how old you are .'' 

Land,. Yes, if you'd like to know. 

Trav. Hem ! [disconcerted.'] Are you a native. Sir ? 

Land. No, Sir ; there are no natives hereabouts. 

Trav. 3Iem. None of the inhabitants natives ; ergo, all 
foreigners. [A.loud.~\ Where were you born. Sir ? 

Land. Do you know where Marblehead is ? 

Trav. Yes. 

Land. W"ell, I was not born there. 

Trav. Why did you ask the question then ? 

Land. Because my daddy was. 

Trav. But you were born somewhere. 

Land. That 's true ; but as father moved up country 
afore the townships were marked out, my case is some- 
what like the Indian's, who was born at Nantucket, Cape 
Cod, and all along shore. 

Trav. Were you brought up in this place, Sir } 



304 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Land. No ; I was raised in Varmount till mother diedy 
and then as father was good for nothing after that, I pulled 
up stakes and went to sea a bit. 

Trav. Mem. Yankees instead of putting up stones pull 
up stakes, and go to sea, when a parent dies. [Aloud,'\ 
You did not follow the sea ionar, for you have not the air 
of a mariner. 

Land. Why, you see, I had a leetle knack at the coop- 
ering business ; and laming that them folks that carry it 
on in the West Indies die off fast, I calculated I should 
stand a chance to make something there. 

Trav. And so you turned sailor to get there ? 

Land. Not exactly, for I agreed to work my passage by 
cooking for the crew, and tending the dumb critters. 

Trav. Dumb critters i Of what was your lading com- 
posed ? 

Land. A leetle of every thing ; — horses, hogs, hoop- 
poles, and Hingham boxes ; boards, ingyons, soap, can- 
dles, and ile. 

Trav. Mem. Soap, candles, and iles, called dumb crit- 
ters by the Yankees. [_.B.loud.'] Did you arrive there 
safely .'' 

Land. No, I guess we did n't. 

Trav. Why not ? 

Land. We had a fair wind, and sailed a pretty piece, I 
tell you ; — hni jest afore we reached* the eend of our mge, 
some pirates overhauled us, and stole all our molasses, 
rum and gingerbread. 

Trav. Is that all^they did to you .'* 

Land. No, they ordered us on board their vessel, and 
promised us some black-strap. 

Trav. Mem. Pirates catch Yankees with a black strap. 
\Jlloud.'\ Did you accept the invitation ? 

Land. No, I guess we did n't. And so they threatened 
to fire into us. 

Trav. What did your captain do ? 

Land. Fire, and be darned, says he, but you 'd better 
not spill the deacon's ile, I tell you. 

Trav. And so you ran off, did you ? 

Land. No ; we sailed off. But the captain said it was 
a tarnal shame to let them steal our necessaries, and so he 
right about, and peppered 'em, I tell you. 



THE NEW SPEAKElfl. 305 

Trav. Mem. Yankees use pepper for shot when they 
fight pirates. [Moud.'] Did you take them ? 

Land. Yes ; and my sAear has built this housie. 

Trav. Mem. Yankees build houses with shears. [Aloud.'] 
You no doubt cabbaged a little from the pirates. 

Land. O yes, it 's an ill wind that blows no where, as 
the saying is. And now may I make so bold jas to ask 
whose name I shall enter in my books ? 

IVav. Mine. 

Land. Hem !-— If it 's not an impertinent question, may 
I ask v/hich way you are travelling ? 

Trav. Home. 

Land. Faith ! have not I as good a right to catechise 
you as you had to catechise me ? 

Trav. Yes. Mem. Yankees the most inquisitive people 
in the world, impertinent too, and unwilling to communi- 
cate information to travellers. lAloud.] Well, Sir, if you 
have accommodations fit for a gentleman, I will put up 
with you. 

Land. They have always suited gentlemen, but I can't 
say how you HI like 'em. 

Trav. There is a tolerable prospect from this window. 
What hill is that, yonder ? 

Land. Bunker Hill, Sir. 

Trav. Pretty hill. If I had my instruments here 1 
should like to take it. 

Land. You had better not try. It required three thou- 
sand instruments to take it in '75. 

Trav. Mem. A common Yankee hill cannot be drawn 
without three thousand instruments. [Jiloud.'] Faith, 
Landlord, your Yankee draughtsmen must be great bun- 
glers. But co-me. Sir, give me breakfast, for I must be 
going ; there is nothing else in this vicinity worthy the no- 
tice of a traveller. 



THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARY.— EDITOR. 

[Enter Ituse.~\ 
Ruse. I AM almost afraid to try, but I must do some-^ 
thing or starve. I am told that Dr. Oxyde, who lives herCi 

26* 



306 THE NEW gPEAiCM. 

is so absorbed' in antiquarian researches that he is easily 
imposed upon. I have nothing to sell him but a tag lock 
of a cashmere rarn, my queue, which the physician cut off 
when I had the yellow fever, an old pistol which has lost 
its fellow, a bottle of \Vater which they told me was good 
for the scrofula, the last letter from my sweetheart, and a 
spare old hat, which floated ashore after my shipwreck. 
To these I may add a good stock of assurance, which I 
am the more reconciled to using upon the Doctor, be- 
cause, though he is said to pay liberally for useless an- 
tiques, he refused me a night's Iddging when I was first 
cast ashore. 
[Enter Dr. Oxyde, dressed in the style of the last century.'] 

Dr. O. Well, Sir, what is your business with me ? 

Ruse. I have a few precious relics. Sir, which necessity 
compels me to part with. I have parted with every thing 
else, and hoped to have kept these in my possession. In- 
deed, I shall only sell them now, upon condition that I 
may redeem them within a year, at what I sell them fdr, 
if I should ever reach home. 

Dr. O. I will look at them, Sir. 

Ruse. [Taking up the goat'^s hair.~\ This, Sir, is a lock 
of hair from the head of Phillip of Mount Hope, the abo- 
riginal patriot — the greatest hero — the 

Dr. O. I know all about him, friend. But this does not 
resemble an Indian's hair, this is white. 

Ruse. I am surprised to hear such an objection from so 
distinguished an antiquary. I take its color to be the best 
proof of its genuineness. It has been bleached by age. A 
century and a half is a long while for hair to be preserved. 
Dr. Oxyde. 

Dr. O. Where are your certificates to prove all this. 

Ruse. Certificates, Doctor ! I would not have insulted 
you by offering any ; but if you insist upon them it will be 
as easy to procure them as to prove that I had a grand- 
father from whom I inherited them. 

Dr. O. Well. What else have you ? 

Ruse. A bottle of the water which the Plymouth settlers 
brought over. 

Dr. 0. Stop, friend, not so fast — they drank up all 
their water before they landed, and borrowed some beer 



icim NEW sPEAitEfi. mi 

Muse. It cannot be, Doctor, that they drank up all, fot 
you see here is a bottle of it. One. fact like this is worth 
a dozen histories. 

Br. 0. But why should they bottle up water which is 
so common ? 

Ruse. You an antiquary and ask this ? Think you, if 
there was but one quart of water on board, it would not be 
precious as tears and worth bottling ? 

Dr. 0. Ay, ay ; but what is that in your hand ? 

Ruse. Governor Endicott's queue 

Dr. 0. But Governor Endicott wore no queue, and 
never allowed one to be worn in the colony. \ 

Ruse. Dear Sir, you did not hear me out. This queue 
was cut from his head some years after his decease. His 
hair might have grown, you know, after his death, to be 
revenged for his hostility to it while living. 

Dr. O. I have heard of such things, but how comes 
this not to be bleached also after two centuries ^ 

Ruse. There again even Dr. Oxyde may learn some- 
thing from one who pretends to no antiquarian skill. The 
ordinary process of bleaching does not take place in post- 
humous hair. 

Dr. O. This was a long growth for row-en though, you 
must confess. 

Ruse. The oftener grass is cut the ranker it grows. 
Doctor. — My next relic is a pistol of William Penn, the 
greatest legislator and philan 

Dr. O. Stop, stop, Sir. William Penn was a Quaker, 
and used no fire-arms. 

Ruse. The very man to take care of guns and pistols. 
Because he never used them, does it follow that he never 
kej^t them ? Do you keep nothing that you never use .'' 
Do you give the poor all the money you do not need ? 
Do you bless the world with all the precious learning you 
have laid up ? 

Dr. O, It never entered my imagination before ;that 
William Penn kept fire-arms. 

Ruse. Nor would it mine had not I possessed one. 

Dr. 0. I must have some proof of this. 

Ruse. Proof, Sir ! is not its having no lock sufficient 
proof that it belonged to a peaceable man ? I am surpris- 
ed, Doctor, to hear a man of your profound judgement 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



asking for procf. My next antique is a hat of William 
Penn, a mate to the pistol ; I mean they shall go together. 

Dr. O. But Penn wore the broad brim of his sect. How 
will you get over that ? 

Ruse. If this were a broad brim, you might suspect it, 
but you do not suppose that any one would offer a hat so 
unlike a Quaker's, unless he was sure it was genuine. 

Dr. O. But how do I know that Penn ever wore such 
a hat ? 

Ruse. How do you know that he never had a ' world's 
hat ^ ' We know he wore one before he turned Qusiker, 
and he would undoubtedly preserve that, as a memento of 
his past vanity and present wisdom, with more care than 
he would waste upon an every day hat. 

Dr. 0. I must think upon this. 

Ruse. The last relic I have to offer you, Doctor, is the 
most curious. It is an original love letter of Pocahontas 
to Captain Smith. 

Dr, O. But Smith was a married man, and too old for 
her. 

Ruse. Love overleaps all bars, Doctor. 

Dr. O. Ay, ay, but who taught her how to write" ? 

Ruse. How How should I know that ? Besides, of 

what consequence is it, since this letter proves she did 
write ? 

Dr. 0. But who taught her the Enghsh language ? 

Ruse. All nations understand the language of love. 
Doctor. 

Dr. O. Ay, ay, I mean the written language. 

Ruse. That is written on the hearts of all. 

Dr. O. But this is written on paper, Sir, and if I mis- 
take not, [examining the paper,'] on modern paper. Here 
is the maker's name, Sir, and the date is only 1820. 

Ruse. Let me &ee, there must be some mistake. O, 
yes, look here, Sir, this is a letter to myself, I have 
brought the wrong one, but no matter, I may not need to 
sell it. 

Dr. O. What price do you put upon these relics. Sir. 

Ruse. I had appraised them at a round hundred each. 
Doctor, but the letter is absent and my wants urgent. I 
will take three hundred for these four. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 309 

Dr. 0. Sir, your price is extravagant, very extravagant. 
I should be ruined to give it. 

Ruse- Is it Dr. Oxyde, who says so ? I had been told 
he knew the value of such relics, and would pay for them ; 
but I have been misinformed and shall reserve them for 
somebody who knows how to value what is really invalu- 
able. 

Dr. O. I will give you the money, friend, upon two 
conditions. The first is, that 1 shall have the refusal 
of Pocahontas's letter, and the second, that you will tell 
no one of the purchase, for I should like to make it 
known to the world myself, in a communication to our 
Antiquarian Society, which I shall read to them at our 
next meeting. 

Ruse. My distresses oblige me to accept your terms, 
Doctor. 

Dr. O. There then, [^giving the money.^ 

Ruse. This is right, Sir, but you must recollect that I 
reserve the right to redeem them within one year. Good 
morning, Doctor. 



THE FORTUNE-TELLER. EDITOR, 

Mrs. Credulous and the Fortune- Teller. 

Mrs. C. Are you the fortune-teller, Sir, that knows ev- 
ery thing ? 

F. T. I sometimes consult futurity. Madam, but I make 
no pretensions to any supernatural know^ledge. 

Mrs. C. Ay, so you say, but every body else says you 
know every thing, and I have come all the way from Bos- 
ton to consult you, for you must know I have met with a 
dreadful loss. 

F. T. We are liable to losses in this world. Madam. 

Mrs. C. Yes, and I have had my share of them, though 
I shall only be fifty come thanksgiving. 

F. T. You must have learned to bear misfortunes with 
fortitude by this time. 

Mrs. C. I don't know how that is, though my dear hus- 
band, rest his soul, used to say, Molly, you are as patient 
as Job, though you never had any children to lose as he 
did. 



310 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



F. T. Job was a model of patience, Madam and few 
could lose their all with so much resignation. 

Mrs. C. Ah, Sir, that is too true, for even the compara- 
tively small loss I have suffered overwhelms me. 

F. T. The loss of property, Madam comes home to the 
bosom of the best of us. 

Mrs C. Yes, Sir ; and when the thing lost cannot be re- 
placed, it is doubly distressing. When my poor, good 
man, on our wedding day, gave me the ring ' Keep it, 
Molly,' said he, Hill you die, for my sake.' And now 
that I should have lost it, after keeping it thirty years, and 
locking it up so carefully all the time, as I did 

F. T. We cannot be too careful in this world. Madam ; 
our best friends often deceive us. 

Mrs. C. True, Sir, true — but who would have thought 
that the child I took as it were out of the street, and brought 
up as my o r/n, could have been guilty of such ingratitude ? 
She never would have touched what was not her own, 
if her vagabond lover had not put her up to it. 

F. T. Ah, Madam, ingratitude is the basest of all 
crimes. 

Mrs. C. Yes, but to think that the impudent wench 
should deny she took it, when I saw it in the possession of 
that wretch myself 

F. T. Impudence, Madam, usually accompanies crime. 
But my time is precious, and the star that rules your des- 
tiny will set, and your fate be involved in darkness, unless 
I proceed to business immediately. The stars inform me. 
Madam, that you are a widow. 

Mrs. C. La ! Sir, was you acquainted with my deceas- 
ed husband ? 

F. T. No, Madam, we do not receive our knowledge by 
such communications. Thy name is Mary, and thy dwell- 
ing place is Boston. 

Mrs. C. Some spirit must have told you this for certain. 

F. T. This is not all. Madam. You were married at the 
age of twenty years, and were the sole heir of your deceas- 
ed husband. 

Mrs. C. Mercy on me, how could you know that .'' 

F. T. Madam, I cannot help knowing what I do know. 
I must therefore inform you that your adopted daughter in 
the dead of night 



TttE NEW SPEAKEft. ^ll 

Mrs. C. No, Sir, it was in the day time. 

F. T. Do not interrupt me. Madam. — In the dead 6^ 
night, your adopted daughter — planned the robbiery which 
deprived you of your wedding ring. 

Mrs. C. No earthly being could have revealed this, for 
I never let my right hand know thai I possessed it, lest 
some evil should happen to it. 

F. T. Hear me Madam. You have come all this dis- 
tance to consult the fates, and find your ring. 

Mrs. C. You have guessed my intention exactly. Sir. 

J^. T. Guessed ! madam. I know this is your object ; 
and I know, moreover, that your Ungrateful daughter has 
incurred your displeasure by receiving the addresses of a 
worthless man. 

Mrs. C. Every word is gospel triith ! 

F. T. This man has persuaded your daughter ^ 

Mrs. C. I knew he did, I told her so. But, good Sirj 
can you tell me who has the ring ? 

F. T. This young nian has it. 

Mrs. C. But he denies it. Sir. 

F. T. No matter Madam, he has it. 

Mrs. C. But how shdl I obtain it again ? 

jP. T. The law points out the way. Madam— it is my 
business to point out the rogue, you must catch him. 

Mrs. C. You are right. Sir — and if there is law to be 
had, I will spend every cent I own, but I will have it. I 
. knew he was a robber, and I thank you for the informa- 
tion, [going.'] 

F. T. But thanks, Madam, will not pay for all my night- 
ly vigils, consultations, and calculations. 

Mrs. C. O, right. Sir. I forgot to pay you. What am 
I indebted to you ? 

JP. T. Only five dollars. Madam. 

Mrs. C. There it is. Sir. I would have paid twenty 
rather than not to have found the ring. 

F. T. I never take but five. Madam. Farewell, Madam, 
your friend is at the door with your chaise. FareWell [lie 
leaves the room.'] 

[Enter Friend.] 

Friend. Well, Mary, what does the fortune-teller say ? 

Mrs. C. O, he told me I was a widow, and lived in Bos- 
ton, and had an adopted daughter, and "-and ^ - 



31^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



Friend. But you kwew all this before, did you not ? 

Mrs. C. Yes ; but how should he know it ? He told me 
too, that I had lost a ring- 

Friend. Did he tell you where to find it ? 

Mrs. C. O yes ! he says that fellow has it, and I must 
go to law and get it, if he will not give it up. What do 
you think of that ? 

Friend. It is precisely what any fool could have told 
you. How much did you pay for this precious informa- 
tion ? 

Mrs. C. Only five dollars. 

Friend. How much was the ring worth ? 

Mrs. C. Why two dollars at least. 

Friend. Then you have paid ten dollars for a chaise to 
bring you here, five dollars for information that you had 
already, and all this to gain possession of a ring not worth 
one quarter of the expense ! 

Mrs. C. O, the rascal ! how he has cheated me. I will 
go to the world's end but I will be revenged. 

Frieiid. You had better go home, and say nothing about 
it, for every effort to recover yt)ur money will only expose 
your folly. 



PHYSIOGNOMY. EDITOR. 



John. I UNDERSTAND that General La Fayette is to visit 
you this afternoon, and never having seen him, I am anx- 
ious to examine his featvires. 

Thos. Always at your physiognomy! I suppose if his 
face does not conform to your rules, you will swear that the 
whole world is deceived in his character, and that he is not 
what he seems, brave, and wise, and good. 

John. Not so bad as that, Thomas, for I am prepared to 
magnify every favorable trait in his countenance. My 
only fear is, that I shall see traces of good qualities where 
there are none. 

Thos. You will soon have a chance to try your skill and 
your fairness, for here he comes. 

[Enter the General.} 
My dear General, how do you do ? 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 313 

Gen. Well, my dear Sir, if happiness can make me so. 
1 am oppressed by the kindness of my American children. 

Thos. In their anxiety to unburden their hearts they for- 
get that it is the samie wearied man who' has received the 
homage of a million hearts before. 

Gen. I could not die a more plea&ant death ; but I am in 
no danger. This affection has restored my youth, and 
given new warmth to my heart. 

Thos. Long may it continue to do so. But, come. Sir, 
and let me introduce you to my family. [They go out. 
John comes forward.'] 

John. Well, John Casper Lavater forever ! I could not 
have believed that every feature would have borne such 
evidence to his exalted character. I shall silence the un- 
belief of Thomas in my favourite science now. 
\_Enter Thomas.'] 

Thos. Excuse me, John, for not introducing the Gener- 
al to you. I supposed you wished to examine him unno- 
ticed. 

John. I did so, and am satisfied, 

Thos. Satisfied, of what ? 

John. That he is great. 

Thos. Must a man study physiognomy to be satisfied of 
that ? I have no skill in this science, but I have long been 
satisfied of his greatness. 

John. Ay, Ay, but how inferior must be such satisfac- 
tion to that which arises from Observing the coincidence of 
his character with the rules of our science. 

Thos. How so ? 

John. You read that he is brave, and you believe it. I 
believe it also, but when I look upon his brow, and find it 
marked with every noble qualit}'^, I do more than believe, 
I feel that he is brave. 

Thos. But his features ar« mild and any thing but war- 
like. I never should select his face for a warrior's. 

Johii. Because you examine superficially. We, who 
have studied the human countenance, can see marks invis- 
ible to common eyes. 

Thos. No doubt ; but still I think his countenance is 
any thing but formidable. Besides, his large full ey^, and 
small arched eyebrows, indicate a feeble intellect. 
27 



314 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

John. My dear Sir, this is too bad — you are almost pro- 
fane. No fool oould ever arch his eyebrows so sublimely. 

Thos. Our monkey can sometimes. 

John. What think you of his nose then ? 

Thos. It is rather lengthy. 

John. Ay, but what talent does it indicate ? Does not 
foresight sit upon it ? 

Thos. Yes, when he wears spectacles. 

John. You are determined to ridicule my science. 

Thos. Do you not suspect that a previous knowledge of 
his character has assisted you in developing the expres- 
sion of his features. 

John. Not in the least. I need no previous acquaint- 
ance with such a man to enable me to read his character. 
Sir, no other man than La Fayette ever wore such a head 
as I have just seen, and no face ever more distinctly bore 
the impress of goodness, valor, and wisdom. 
[Enter the suf 'posed general.'] 

Thos. Well, Bob, have you taken care of the General's 
horses ? 

Bob. Yes, Sir. 

Thos. You may put your new dress in my wardrobe 
again, and then clean my boots. 

Boh. I will. Sir, for I am tired of acting the General. 
[Exit.] 

John. How is this ^ the General your serving man } 

Thos. Even so. I have amused myself a little at your 
expense, but if I have exposed an innocent folly, which 
seeks to be wise above what is written, you will forgive me. 

John. I could forgive the joke if the servant had not 
joined in it. 

Thos. He knows not the object of it. I taught him the 
little he had to say, and you must own he said it well. 

John. Not exactly — I thought I could see a little of the 
clown under the disguise. 

Thos. I dare say you can see it now you know his real 
character ; but you know it is not long since no man but 
La Fayette ever wore such a head. You may depend upon 
it your judgment .has been astride of your imagination for 
once. 

John. I acknowledge it, or I should never have so mis- 
applied the rules of my divine science. The art was in 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 315 

unskilful ha^^ds; but its rules are no less certain on that 
account. 

Thos. If I have convinced you that the rules of your 
science are not infallible, I shall not deny that the features 
do sometimes form the basis of our judgment ; but this judg- 
ment is often erroneous, or prejudice is a word without 
signification. But, come, I will pay you for the joke by 
introducing you to the real General, who has been sever- 
al hours in the house. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PENSIONER. DIALOGUE BETWEEN CAP- 
TAIN HARDY, AND NATHAN. 

JVathan. Good morning. Captain. How do you stand 
this hot v/eather ? 

Cap. Lord bless you, boy, it 's a cold bath to what we 
had at Monmouth, Did I ever tell you about that-air bat- 
tle ? 

JV. I have always understood that it was dreadful hot 
that day ? 

Cap. Lord bless you, boy, it makes my crutch sweat to 
think on't — and if I did n't hate long stories, I'd tell you 
things about that-air battle, sitch as you would n't believe, 
you rogue, if / did n't tell you. It beats all natur how hot 
it was. 

JV. I wonder you did not all die of heat and fatigue. 

Cap. Why, so we should, if the reglars had only died 
first ; but, you see, they never liked the Jarseys, and 
v/ould n't lay their bones there. Now, if I did n't hate long 
stories, I'd tell you all about that-air business, for you see 
they don't do things so now a days. 
.JV' How so ? — Do not people die as they used to ? 

Cap. Lord bless you, no. — It beat all natur to see how 
long the reglars would kick after we killed them. 

JV. What ! kick after they were killed ! That does beat 
all Tiatur, as you say. 

Cap. Come, boy, no splitting hairs with an old Conti- 
nental, for you see, if I did n't hate long stories, I'd tell 
you things about thisi-ere battle, that you'd never believe. 
Why, Lord bless you, when General Washington fe//ecZ us 
we might gite it to 'em, we gin it to 'em, I tell you. 



316 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

JV. You gave what to them ? 

Cap. Cold lead, you rogue. Why bless you, we firexi' 
twice to their once, you see ; and, if I did n't hate long 
stories, I 'd tell you how we did it. You must know, the 
reglars wore their close bodied red coats because they 
thought we were afeard on 'em, but we did not wear any 
coats, you see, because we had n't any, 

JV. How happened you to be without coats ? 
Cap. Why, Lord bless you, they would wear out, and the 
States could n't buy us any more, you see, and so we 
marched the lighter, and worked the freer for it. Now, if I 
did not hate long stories, I could tell you what the Gine- 
ral said to me next day, when I had a touch of the rheuma- 
tiz from lying on the field without a blanket all night. You 
must know, it was raining -hard just then, and we were 
pushing on like all nahir arter the reglars. 
JY. What did the General say to you .'' 
Cap. Not a syllable, says he, but off comes his coat* and 
he throws it over my shoulders, ' there, Captain,' says he, 
*wear that, for we can't spare you yet.' Now don't that 
beat all natur, hey ? 

JV. So you wore the General's coat, did you ? 
Cap. Lord bless your simple heart, no. I did n't feel 
sick arter that, I tell you. No, Gineral, says I, they can 
spare me better than they can you, jest now, and so I'll 
take the will for the deed, says I. » 

JV. You will never forget this kindness. Captain. 
Cap. Not I, boy I I never feel a twinge of the rheurna- 
tiz, but what I say, God bless the Gineral. Now you 
see, I hate long stories, or I 'd tell you how I gin it to a reg- 
lar that tried to shoot the Gineral at Monmouth. You 
know we were at close quarters, and the Gineral was right 
between the two fires. 

JV. I wonder he was not shot. 

Cap. Lord bless your ignorant soul, nobody could kill 
the Gineral ; but you see, a sneaking reg/ar did n't know 
this, and so he levelled his musket at him, and you see, I 
seed what he was arter, and I gin the Gineral's horse a 
slap on the haunches, and it beats all natur how he sprung, 
and the Gineral all the while as straight as a gun barrel. 
JV. And so you saved the General's life. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 317 

tap. Did n't I tell you nobody could killthe Gineral ; 
but, you see, his horse was in the rake of my gun, and I 
wanted to get the st^rt of that cowardly reglar. 

JV. Did you hit him ? 

Cap. Lord bless your simple soul, does the thunder hit 
where it strikes ! though the fellow made me blink a little, 
for he carried away part of this ear.— See there ! {shovnng 
his ear) now don't that beat all natur ? 

JV. I think it does. But tell me how is it that you took 
all these things so calmly. What made you so contented 
under your deprivations and hardships ? 

Cap. O, bless your young soul, we got used to it. Be- 
sides, you see, the Gineral never flinched nor grumbled. 

JV*. Yes, but you served without being paid. 

Cap. So did the Gineral, and the States you know were 
poor as all natur. 

jy. But you had families to support. 

Cap. Ay, ay, but the Gineral always told us that God 
and our country would take care of them, you see. Now, 
if 1 did n't hate long stories I'd tell you how it turned out 
jest as he said, for he beat all natur for guessing right. 

JV. Then you feel happy, and satisfied with what you 
have done for your country, and what she has done for 
you ? 

Cap. Why, Lord bless you, if I had n'jt left one of my 
legs at Yorktown, I would n't have touched a stiver of the 
States' money, and as it is, I am so old, that I shall not 
need it long. You must know, I long to see the Gineral 
again, for if he don't hate long stories as bad as I do, I 
sha«!l tell him all about America, you see, for it beats all 
natur how things have changed since he left us. 



Jl Boarding-house in Boston. Landlord alone. 

Land. Who can my new boarder be ^ I know not what 
he is here, but I '11 be bound he 's a major, colonel, deacon, 
or 'squire at home. But here he comes. I will endea- 
vour to find out his quality, which will be an easy matter^ 

27* 



318 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



if he is as proud of it, and as willing to make it knowii, as 
the country nobility generally are. 

lEnter General Punkin.~\ 

Land. Your servant, Sir. 

Gen. Sir, your sarvant. 

Land. Is there any news abroad ? 

Gen. Nothing important, I believe. But I have been 
too busily engaged to look for news. 

Land. Purchasing goods, perhaps } 

Gen. No ; I had a pint to carry in the House^ and when 
I do a thing, I make a business of it. 

Land. You have probably had warm work there to-day ? 

Gen. Yes, pretty warm, but we clean beat 'em in the 
argument. 

Land. You took an active part in the debate then } 

Gen. Not exactly, for them-air lawyers talked so fast I 
could not get a word in edgeways. Howsomever, I jog- 
ged a member from Barkshire, and put him up to saying a 
sarcy thing or two. 

Land. Are you fon(^ of public speaking ? 

Gen. Yes, I always make a speech to my ridgiments 
ewexy muster-day, for you must know I 'm a bit of a sol- 
dier at home ; — but somehow or other, whenever I rose to 
speak in the House, I felt something in my throat, which 
said, ' Giiieral, hold your tongue,' and as I could not speak 
a word, I took the advice. 

Land. That was prudent in you. 

Gen. Why, you see, I always mean to speak to the 
pint, and while I am condensing my idees.^ up jumps some- 
body and gets the start of me. 

Land. You are as bad as the lame man at the pool of 
troubled water, but you will get used to it in time. 

Gen. Yes, so I telled my wife. Now, says I, wife, when 
I go to Boston, I mean to do the thing that 's right And 
when I was getting ready, my wife, says she, ^ Gineral, 
(for my wife always calls me Gineral,) ^ Gineral,' says she, 
^ you must have a ruffle put on your shirt, as 'Squire Smart 
has,' Now I don't care nothing about such things myself, 
but my wife, says she, ^ you must do as other folks do.' 
Well, says I, I mean to do the thing that 's right — and so 
you see, she ruffled two of the best linning ones: — J always^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 319 

wear cotton at home, and a body must have a change, you 
know. 

Land. Your wife knows what gentihty is. 

Gen. Yes, as our minister says, ' Gineral,^ says he, 
' your wife 's a lady.' — ^And so she is, though I say it that 
should not say it. 

Land. Why did not you bring her down with you ? 

Gen. She ax^d me to, but says I, my dear, a good sol- 
dier leaves his wife at home, when he goes on duty, and I 
always wish to do the thing that 's right, you know. 

Land. Did you take part in the debate on the penal 
code } 

Gen. No ; you see I don't know nothing about them-air 
things, and as I had not slept any the night before, I took 
a nap in the lobby. 

Land. But you voted when the question was taken ? 

Gen. O yes, for my name was called. 

Land. How could you determine on which side to vote ? 

Gen. Why you see, I watched the leading member from 
our county, and voted as he did, for he generally does the 
thing that 's right. 

Land. Does your town send a member every year } 

Gen. No, only on great occasions. You must know 
there 's a brook between our town and the next, and we 
wanted to steal a march on 'em, and get an act passed to 
prevent them, on the other side, from fishing in it — so, you 
see, they chose me to come and look to it- — Not that I 
wanted to come, but, having a, leetle notion or two to buy 
for my store, says I to my wife, I wish to do the thing 
that 's right, and I '11 go. 

Land. Was this important question settled to-day ^ 

Gen. Why not e«actly settled, as a body may say, for 
some one moved that the question be postponed till the 
thirty-flrst instant, and having a leetle business to do down 
town, I seconded the motion, you see, and it was carried, 
and I 'm glad on 't, for I wish to do the thing that 's right, 
and the othe-r party can n't say I hurried them. 

Land. So I should think ; for if you wait till June has 
thirty-one days, they will have no reason to complain. 

Gen. How is that } How 's that } Have they outgineraU 



3^0 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



edjne after all ? ' 

Thirty days haith September, 
April, June, and November 

I larnt that when I was a boy.— Faith, they've gained the 
day. 

Land. Yes, or the month has. What a kettle of fish 
you have cooked for your constituents. 

Gen. Why between you and I, they had as good a right 
to fish there as we had, and no doubt Providence over- 
ruled the business, for, as our minister says. He always 
does the thing that 's right. 



THIRD PART. 



POETRY. 

;, ARTFULLY EXCITIN© 
THEM TO REVENGE THE DEATH OF C-ESAR. SHAKSPEARE. 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me yovir ears : 
I come to bury Csesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones : 
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
Hath told you, Caesar was ambitious. 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault, — 
And (pointing to the corpse) grievously hath Csesar answer- 
ed it. 
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest, 
(For Brutus is an honorable man. 
So are they all, all honorable men ;) 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me : 
But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
And Brutus is an honorable man. 
He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill : 
Did this in Csesar seem ambitious ? 
When that the poor have cried, Csesar hath wept : 
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
And Brutus is an honorable man. 
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,. 
I thrice presented him a kingly crown ; 
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition ? 



322 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



Yet Brutus says he ivas ambitious ; 
And sure he is an honorable man. 
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke ; 
But here I am to speak what I do know. 
You all did love him once, not without cause : 
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ? 
O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
And men have lost their reason. — Bear with me : 
My heart is in the coffin there with Cassar ; 
And I must pause till it come back to me. — 

But yesterday the word of Csesar might 
Have stood against the world : now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 

masters ! If I were disposed to stir 
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
Who, you all know, are honorable men. 

I will not do them wrong — I rather choose 

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, 

Than I will wrong such honorable men. 

But here's a parchment, with the seal of Caesar ; 

I found it in his closet : 't is his will. 

Let but the people hear this testament, 

('Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,) 

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood — 

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. 

And, dying, mention it within their wills. 

Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, 

Unto their issue. 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle (holding it up to view): I re- 
member 
The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 
'T was on a summer's evening in his tent : 
That day he overcame the Nervii : — 
Look ! In this place, ran Cassius' dagger through : — 
See, what a rent the envious Casca made — 
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed ; 
And, as he plucked the cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Csesar followed it !— 



THE NEW SPEAKEfl. m^ 

This, this was the unkindest cut of all ! 

For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab. 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms. 

Quite vanquished him ! Then burst his mighty heart : 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face. 

Even at the base of Pompey's statue. 

Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down ; 

Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 

O, now you weep ; and I perceive you feel 

The dint of pity : — these are gracious drops. 

Kind souls ! What ! weep you when you but behold 

Our Caesar's vesture wounded } Look ye here : {stripping 

the corpse) 
Here is himself — marred, as you see, by traitors. 

Good friends ! sweet friends ! Let me not stir you up 
To such a sudden flood of mutiny ! 
They that have done this deed are honorable ! 
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not. 
That made them doit ! They are wise and honorable, 
And will, no doubt, with reason answer you. 
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts ! 
I am no orator, as Brutus is ; 
But; as you know me all, a plain, blunt man. 
That loved my friend — and that they know full well, 
That gave me public leave to speak of him ! 
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth. 
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech. 
To stir men's blood : — I only speak right on : 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know — 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths^ 
And bid them speak for me. But, were I Brutus, 
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 



S24 TH£ NJEW SPEAKER. 

feATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD AND DEATH OF MARMIONi— SCOTt* 

Amid the scene of tumult high, 
They saw Lord Marmion's falcon Ay, 
While, on the left, unseen the while, 
Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle. 
Though there the western mountaineer 
Rushed with bare bosom on the spear, 
And flung the feeble targe aside. 
And with both hands the broad-sword plied* 
'T was vain. — But fortune on the right 
With fickle smile, cheered Scotland's fight \ 
Then fell that spotless banner white. 

The Howard's lion fell ; 
Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew. 
With wavering flight, while fiercer grew 

Around the battle yell. 
The border slogan rent the sky, 

Loud fell the clanging blows. 
Advanced, forced back, now low, now high, 

The pennon sunk and rose ; 
As bends the bark's mast in the gale. 
When rent are rigging, shrouds and sail. 

It wavered mid the foes. 
No longer Blount the view could bear : 
^ By Heaven and all its saints ! I swear 

I will not see it lost ! 
Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare 
May bid your beads and patter prayer ' 

I gallop to the host.' 
And to the fray he rode amain. 
Followed by all the archer train. 
The fiery youth, with desperate charge. 
Made, for a space, an opening large — 

The rescued banner rose - 

But darkly closed the war around, 
Like pine tree rooted from the ground^ 

It sunk among the foes. 
Then Eustace mounted too ; — yet staid 
As loath to leave the helpless maid, 

When, fast as shaft can fly, 
Blood-shot his eyes, his nostrils spread^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER ^5 

The loose rein dangling^ from his head, 
Housing and saddle bloody red, 

Lord Marmion's steed rushed by ; 
And Eustace maddening at the sight, 

A look and sign to Clara cast. 

To mark he would return in haste, 
Then plunged into the fight. 

And soon straight up the hill there rode 

Two horsemen drenched with gore, 
And in their arms, a helpless load, 

A wounded knight they bore. 
His hand still strained the broken brand. 
His arms were smeared with blood and sand : 
Dragged from among the horses' feet^ 
With dinted shield and helmet beat. 
The falcon crest and plumage gone ; 
Can that be haughty Marmion ! 
Young Blount his armour did unlace. 
And gazing on his ghastly face, 

Said — ^ By Saint George he 's gone ! 
The spear wound has our master sped : 
And see the deep cut on his head ! 

Good night to Marmion !' - 

^ Unnurtured Blount ! thy brawling cease. 

He opes his eyes,' said Eustace, ' peace !' 

When, doffed his casque, he felt free air, 

Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare : 

V Where's Harry Blount ? Fitz Eustace, where ? 

Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare ? 

Redeem my pennon — charge again f 

Cry, " Marmion to the rescue 1" — Vain I 

Last of my race, on battle plain 

That shout shall ne'er be heard again \ 

Must I bid twice ? — hence, varlets ! fly ! 

Leave Marmion here alone — to die.' 

With fruitless labor, Clara bound. 
And strove to stanch the gushing wound. 
The war, that for a space did fail. 
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,. 
And, Stanley ! was the cry ! 
28 



326 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

A light on Marmion's visage spread, 
And fired his glazing eye ; 

With dying hand, above his head 

He shook the fragment of his blade. 
And shouted, ' Victory !' 

Charge, Chester, charge ! on, Stanley, on ; 
Were the last words of Marmion. 



DESCRIPTION OF AN ANCIENT BATTLE IN SCOTLAND, --'SCOTT, 

There is no breeze upon the fern, 

No ripple on the lake, 
Upon her eyrie nods the erne. 

The deer has sought the brake ; 
The small birds will not sing aloud. 

The springing trout lies still. 
So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud. 
That swathes as with a purple shroud, 

Benledi's distant hill. 
Is it the thunder's solemn sound 

That mutters deep and dread. 
Or echoes from the groaning ground 

The warrior's measured tread ? 
Is it the lightning's quivering glance 

That on the thicket streams. 
Or do they flash on spear and lance 

The sun's retiring beams ? 

I seethe dagger-crest of Mar, 
I see the Moray's silver star. 
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war, * 
That up the lake comes winding far ? 
To hero bound for battle strife 

Or bard of martial lay, 
'T were worth ten years of peaceful life 
One glance at their array. 

Their light armed archers far and near 

Surveyed the tangled ground. 
Their centre ranks, with pirke and spear^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 327 

A twilight forest frowned ; 
Their barbed horsemen in the rear, 

The stern battaUa crowned. 
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, 

Still were the pipe and drum ; 
Save heavy tread, and armour's clang, 

The sullen march was dumb. 
There breathed no wind their crests to shake, 

Or wave their flags abroad ; 
Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, 

That shadowed o'er their road. 
Their vaward scouts no tidings bring. 

Can rouse no lurking foe. 
Nor spy a trace of living thing. 

Save when they stirred the roe ; 
The host moves, like a deep-sea wave. 
Where rise no banks its pride to brave. 

High swelhng, dark and slow. 

The lake is passed, and now they gain 
A narrow and a broken plain. 
Before the Trosach's rugged jaws ; 
And here the horse and spearmen pause, 
While, to explore the dangerous glen, 
Dive through the pass the archer men. 

At once there rose so wild a yell 
Within that dark and narrow dell. 
As all the fiends from heaven that fell, 
Had pealed the banner cry of hell ! 
Forth from the pass in tumult driven. 
Like chaff before the wind of heaven, 

The archery appear ; 
For life I for life I their flight they ))ly ; 
And shriek, and shout, and battle cry, 
And plaids and bonnets waving high. 
And broad-swords flashing to the sky, 

Are maddening in their rear. 
Onward they drive in dreadful race 

Pursuers and pursued ; 
Before that tide of flight and chase 
How shall it keep its rooted place, 



328 THE NEW SPEAKEB. 

The spearmen^s twilight wood ? 
^ Down, down,' cried Mar, ^ your lances down * 
JBear back both friend and foe ! ' 
Like reeds before the tempest's frown, 
That serried grove of lances brown 

At once lay levelled low ; 
And closely shouldering side to side 
The bristling ranks the onset bide. 

'• We 'II quell the savage mountaineer * 

As their hunters cow the game ! 

They come as fleet as forest deer, 

We '11 drive them back as tame.' 

Bearing before them in their course. 
The relics of the archer force, 
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, 
Hight onward did Clan Alpine come. 

Above their tide each broad-sword bright 
Was braildishing like beam of light. 
Each targe was dark below, 
And v/ith the ocean's mighty swing. 
When heaving to the tempest's wing, 
They hurled them on the foe» 
I heard the lance's shivering crash, 
As when the whirlwind rends the ash ; 
I heard the broad-sword's deadly clang- 
As if an hundred anvils rang ; 
But Moray wheeled his rearward rank 
Of horsemen on Clan Alpine's flank, 
'■ My banner men advance ! 
1 see,' he cried, ' their column shake ; 
Now, gallants ! for your ladies' sake, 
Upon them with the lance.' 
The horsemen dashed among the rout, 
As deer break through the broom ; 
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out. 
They soon make lightsome room. 

Clan Alpine's best are backward borne 

Where, where was Roderick, then 1 
One blast upon his bugle horn 

Were worth a thousand men. 
And refluent through the pass of fear 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 32& 



The battle's tide was poured ; 
Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear, 

Vanished the mountain sword. 
As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep, 

Receives her roaring linn. 
As the dark caverns of the deep 

Suck the wild whirlpool in. 
So did the deep and darksome pass 
Devour the battle's mingled mass ; 
None linger now upon the plain. 
Save those who ne'er shall fight again. 



ADDRESS OF BRUCE TO HIS TROOPS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF 
BANNOCKBURN. BURNS. 

Scots who have with Wallace bled, 
Scots whom Bruce has often led, 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to victory. 

Now 's the day, and now 's the hour ; 
See the front of battle lower ; 
See approach proud Edward's power, 
Chains and slavery ! 

Who will b-3 a traitor knave' ? 
Who can fill a coward's grave ? 
Who so base as be a slave ? 

Let him turn and flee ! < 

Who for Scotland's king and law, 
Freedom's sword will strongly draWj 
Freeman stand, or freeman fall, 
J.ct him follow me ! 



By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By our sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free I 

28^ 



330 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty 's in every blow — • 
Let us do or die ! 



THE BATTLE OF TALAVERA.^-BYRON. 
I 

Hark ! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note ? 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath ? 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote ; 
Nor saved your brethren ere they sunk beneath 
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves ! — the fires of death, 
The bale-fires flash on high : — from rock to rock 
lEach volley tells that thousands cease to breathe, 
Death rides upon the sulphury Sirock, 
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. 

Lo ! where the giant on the mountain stands, 
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun. 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, 
And eye that scorcheth all it looks upon ; 
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon 
Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done ; 
For on this morn three potent nations meet 
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. 

Three hosts combine to offer sajcrifice ; 
Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high ; 
Three gaudy standards float the paJLe blue skies ; 
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory ! 
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally. 
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, 
Are met as if at home they could not die — 
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,> 
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain; 
There shall they rot — Ambition's honored fools J 
Yes, honor decks the turf that wEsps their clay I 
Vain Sophistry ! in these behxjH the tools. 
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away 



THE NEW SPEAKEB. ^3i 

By myriads, when they dare to pave their way 
With human hearts — to what ? a dream alone. 
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway ? 
Or call with truth one span of earth their own, 
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone I 



tlOHENLINDEN. CAMPBELL? 

On Linden when the sUn was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow^ 
And dark as winter, was the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

But Linden saw another sight, 
When the drum beat at dead of nighty 
Commanding fires of death to light 

The darkness of her scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, 
Each warrior drew his battle blade, 
And furious every charger neighed, 
To join the dreadful revelry. 

Then shook the hills with thunder riverij 
Then rushed the steeds to battle driven^ 
And^ louder than the bolts of Heaven, 
Far flashed the red artillery^ 

And redder yet those fires shall glow 
On Linden's hills of bloodstained snow j 
And darker yet shall be the flow 
Of Iser rolling rapidly. 

'T is morn, but scarce yon lurid sun 
Can pierce the war clouds, rolling dun. 
While furious Frank and fiery Hun^ 

Shout in their sulphurous canopy; 

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory or the grave ! 



332 THE NEW SPEAKER, 



^ave, Munich, all thy banners wave ! 
And charge with all thy chivalry 

Ah ! few shall part where many meet ! 
I'he snow shall be their winding sheet, 
And every turf beneath their feet 

Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 



BUNKER fllLL BATTLE. PIERPONT. 

British Charge. 

^ Spread your banner to the sky ! 
Let the red cross dance on high ! 
Charge ! their unfledged bird will fly, 

When our trumpets blow. 
When they hear our Lion roar, 
From the ships and from the shore. 
Then, my lads, ye '11 see no more 

Of your rebel foe ! ' 

American Charge. 

Stand ! the ground 's your own, my braves 1 
Will ye give it up to slaves .'' 
Will ye look for greener graves ? 

Hope ye mercy still ? 
What 's the mercy despots feel ? 
Hear it in that battle peal ! 
Read it on yon bristhng steel ! 

Ask it — ye who will. 

Fear ye foes who kill for hire ? 
Will ye to your homes retire ? 
Look behind you ! they 're on fire ! 

And, before you, see 
Who have done it ! — From the vale 
On they come ! — and will ye quail ?--=^ 
Leaden rain and iron hail 

Let their v/elcome be. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 333 



In the God of battles trust ! 
Die we may — and die we must : 
But O, wkere can dust to dust 

Be consigned so well, 
As where Heaven its dews shall shed 
On the martyred patriot's bed, 
And the rocks shall raise their head, 

Of his deeds to tell. 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. BYRON. 

AxD there was mounting in hot haste 5 the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb. 
Or whispering with white lips—' The foe ! They come ! 
they come ! ' 

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. 

Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves. 

Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! 

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 

In its next verdure, w^hen this fiery mass 

Of living valour, rolling on the foe. 

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life. 

Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay. 

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife. 

The morn the marshalling in arms, — ^the day. 

Battle's magnificently-stern array ! 

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, 

The earth is covered thick with other clay, 



334 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,. 
Rider and horse, — friend, foe — -in one red burial blent ! 



THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS. CROLY. 

It was the wild midnight — a storm was on the sky ; 
The lightning gave its light, and the thunder echoed by. 
The torrent swept the glen, the ocean ]ashedthe shore ; 
Then rose the Spartan men, to make their bed in gore ! 
Swift from the deluged ground three hundred took the 

shield ; 
Then, in silence, gathered round the leader of the field ! 

All up the mountain's side, all down the woody vale. 
All by the rolling tide waved the Persian banners pale. 
And foremost from the pass, among the slumbering band, 
Sprang king Leonidas, like the lightning's living brand. 
Then double darkness fell, and the forest ceased its moan ; 
But there came a clash of steel, and a distant dying groan. 
Anon, a trumpet blew, and a fiery sheet burst high. 
That o'er the midnight threw a blood-red canopy. 
A host glared on the hill ; a host glared by the bay ; 
But the Greeks rushed onwards still, like leopards in their 
play. 

The air was all a yell, and the earth was all a flame. 
Where the Spartan's bloody steel on the silken turbans 

came. 
And still the Greek rushed on, where the fiery torrent 

rolled. 
Till like a rising sun, shone Xerxes' tent of gold. 
They found a royal feast, his midnight banquet there ; 
And the treasures of the East lay beneath the Dorick spear. 
Then sat to the repast the bravest of the brave ! 
That feast must be their la^t, that spot must be their grave. 
Up rose the glorious rank, to Greece one cup poured high, 
Then hand in hand they draiik, ' to immortality !' 

Fear on king Xerxes fell, when, like spirits firom the tomh, 
With shout and trumpet knell, he saw the warriors come. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. SS5 

But down swept all his power, with chariot and with charge ; 
Down poured the arrows, shower, till sank the Spartan 

targe. — 
Thus fought the Greek of old ! thus will he fight again ! 
Shall not the self-same mould bring forth the self-same men ? 



THE EPAMINONDAS OF MODERN GREECE.-— 
ATHEN^UM. 

[He fell in an attack upon the Turkish Camp at Laspi, the site of the 
ancient Plateea, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of vic-^ 
tory. His last words were — ' To die for libei'ty is a pleasure and not 
a pain.'] 

At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour. 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 

Should tremble at his power. 
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
The trophies of a conqueror ; 

In dreams, his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet ring, — 
Then pressed that monarch's throne, — a king ; 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing. 

As Eden's garden bird. 

An hour passed on — the Turk awoke ; 

That bright dream was his last ; 
He woke — to hear his sentry's shriek, 
^ To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek ! ' 
He woke—to dif! midst flame and smoke. 
And shout, and groan, and sabre stroke. 
And death shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain cloud ; 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band ; 
^ Strike — till the last armed foe expireSj 
Strike — for your altars and your fires, 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires, 

God — and your native land ! ' 

They fought — like brave men, long and well. 
They piled that ground with Moslem slain, 
They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 



336 THE NEW SPEAKER, 

Bleeding at every vein. 
His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile, wheji rang their proud hurrah, 

And the red field was won ; 
Then saw in death his ejelids close 
Calmly, as to a night's repose, 

Like flowers at set of sun. 

Come to the bridal chamber. Death ! 

Come to the mother, when she feels 
For the first time her first-born's breath ;— 

Come when the blessed seals 
Which close the pestilence are brokej 
And crowded cities wail its stroke ; 
Come in consumption's ghastly form. 
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ; — 
Come when the heart beats high and warm, 

With banquet-song and dance, and wine. 
And thou art terrible : tb-e tear, 
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier. 
And all we know, or dream, or fear 

Of agony, are thine. 

But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for the free. 
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word. 
And in its hollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions yet to be. 
Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 
Rest thee — there is no prouder grave. 

Even in her own proud clime. 
We tell thy doom without a sigh ; 
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's-^ 
One of the few, the immortal names. 

That were not born to die. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF GREECE.— LORD BYRON. 

CuME of the unforgotten brave ! 
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 337 



Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave— ^^ 
Shrine of the mighty ! can it be, 
That this is all remains of thee ? 
Approach, thou craven crouching slave — 
Say, is not this Thermopylae ? 
These waters blue that round you lave, 
Oh servile offspring of the free ! — 
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this ? 
The gulph, the rock of Salarais I 
These scenes— their story not unknown — • 
Arise, and make again your own ;— 
Snatch from the ashes of your sires 
The embers of their former fires. 
And he who in the strife expires 
Will add to theirs a name of fear. 
That Tyranny shall quake to hear. 
And leave hi&sons a hope, a fame. 
They too will rather die than shame ; — 
For Freedom's battle once begun. 
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son. 
Though baffled oft, is ever won. 
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, 
Attest it many a deathless age I 
While kings, in dusty darkness hid. 
Have left a nameless pyramid. 
Thy heroes, though the general doom 
Hath swept the column from their tomb, 
A mightier monument command. 
The mountains of their native land ! 
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye 
The graves of those that cannot die 1 
'T were long to tell, and sad to trace. 
Each step from splendor to disgrace, 
Enough — no foreign foe could quell 
Tliy soul, till from itself it fell. 
And self-abasement paved the way 
To villain-bonds and despot-sway. 
What can he tell who treads thy shore .'' 
No legend of thine olden time. 
No theme on which the muse might soar, 
High as thine own in days of yore. 
When man was worthy of thy clime j— 
29 



338 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



The hearts within thy vallies bred, 

The fiery souls that might have led 

Thy sons to deeds sublime, 

Now crawl from cradle to the grave, 

Slaves — nay bondsmen of a slave, 

And callous, save to crime ; — 

In vain might Liberty invoke 

The spirit to its bondage broke ; 

Or raise the neck that courts the yoke. 



LIBERTY TO ATHENS. FERCIVAL 

The flag of freedom floats once more 
Around the lofty Parthenon ; 
It waves as waved the palm of yore, 
In days departed long and gone ; 
As bright a glory, from the skies, 
Pours down its light around these towers, 
And once again the Greeks arise. 
As in their country's noblest hours : 
Their swords are girt in virtue's cause, 
Minerva's sacred hill is free — 
O ! may she keep her equal laws, 
While man shall live, and time shall be. 

The pride of all her shrines went down ; 
The Goth, the Frank, the Turk, had reft 
The laurel from her civic crown ; 
Her helm by many a sword was cleft ; 
She lay among her ruins low ; 
Where grew the palm, the cypress rose ; 
And crushed and bruised by many a blow, 
She cowered beneath her savage foes ; 
But now again she springs from earth. 
Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks ; 
She rises in a brighter birth. 
And sounds redemption to the Greeks. 

It is the classic jubilee ; 

Their servile years have rolled away \ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 339 



The clouds that hover'd o'er them flee ; 
They hail the dawii of freedom's day ; 
From heaven the golden light descends, 
The times of old are on the wing, 
And glory there her pinion bends. 
And beauty wakes a fairer spring ; 
The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves. 
Are all in triumph's pomp arrayed ; 
A light that points their tyrants' graves, 
Plavs round each bold Athenian's blade. 



, THERMOPYL.5:. BYRON. 

They fell devoted, but undying ; 
The very gale their names seem.ed sighing 
The waters murmured of their name ; 
The woods were peopled with their fame ; 
The silent pillar, lone and gray. 
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay ; 
Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain ; 
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain ; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
HoUed, mingled with their fame, for ever. 
Despite of every yoke she bears. 
That land is Glory's still, and their's ! 
'T is still a watch-word to the earth ; — 
When man would do a deed of worth. 
He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 
So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head ; 
He looks to her, and rushes on 
Where life is lost or freedom won. 



ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. BYRON. 

Ill-minded man ! why scourge thy kind 
Who bow'd so low the knee } 
By gazing on thyself grown blind, 
Thou taught'st the rest to see, 



340 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

With might, unquestionM-power, to save — 
Thine only gift hath been the grave 
To those that worshipped thee ; 
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess 
Ambition's less than littleness ! 

Thanks for that lesson — it will teach 

To after-warriors more ' 

Than high Philosophy can preach, 

And vainly preached before. 

The spell upon the minds of men 

Breaks never to unite again, 

That led them to adore 

Those Pagod things of sabre sway, 

With fronts of brass, and feet of clay. 

Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust 

Is vile as vulgar clay ; 

Thy scales. Mortality ! are just 

To all that pass away ; 

But yet methought the living great 

Some higher sparks should animate. 

To dazzle and dismay ; 

Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth 

Of these, the conquerors of the earth. 

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, 

And gaze upon the sea ; 

That element may meet thy smile. 

It ne'er was ruled by thee ! 

Or trace with thine all idle hand 

In loitering mood upon the sand. 

That earth is now as free ! 

That Corinth's pedagogue hath now 

Transferred his by-word to thy brow. 



APOSTROPHE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. IMPEY. 

O bury me deep in the boundless sea. 

Let my heart have a limitless grave ; 



THE NEW SPEAKER Mi 

For my spirit in life was as fierce and free 
As the course of the tempest wave. 

As far from the reach of mortal control 

Were the depths of my fathomless mind ; 

And the ebbs and flows of my single soul, 
Were tides to the rest of mankind. 

Then my briny pall shall encircle the world, 

As in life did the voice of my fame ; 
And each mountainous billow, that skyward curled, 

Shall to fancy reecho my name. 

That name shall be storied in record sublime, 

In the uttermost corners of earth. 
And beam till the wreck of expiring time, 

On the glorified land of my birth. 

Yes, bury my heart in the boundless sea — 
It would burst from a narrower tomb; — 

Should less than an ocean his sepulchre be 

Whose breast was Ambition's proud home ? 



THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. -^WOLFE. 

Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, 
As his corse to the rampart we hurried ; 
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 
O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 

We buried him darkly at dead of night. 
The sods with our bayonets turning. 
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light. 
And the lantern dimly burning. 

No useless coffin enclosed his breast, 
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him ; 
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest* 
With his martial cloak around him. 

29* 



342 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



Few, and short, were the prayers we said, 
Aiid we spoke not a word of sorrow ; 
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, 
And we bitterly thought of the morrow. 

We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, 

And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head. 

And we far away on the billow. 

Lightly they '11 talk of the spirit that 's gone. 
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ; 
But nothing he '11 reck, if they let him sleep on, 
In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 

But half of our heavy task was done 
When the clock tolled the hour for retiring. 
And we heard the distant and warning gun. 
That the foe was suddenly firing. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 
From the field of his fame fresh and gory ; 
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone. 
But we left him alone with his glory. 



THE soldier's DREAM. CAMPBELL. 



Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered. 

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky ; 
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered. 

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw. 

By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain ; 
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw. 

And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. 
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array. 

Far, far T had roamed on a desolate track ; 
'T was autumn — and sunshine arose on the way 

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back, 
I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft 

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young : 



The new speaker. 343 

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. 
Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore. 

From my home and my weeping friends never to part ; 
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, 

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart. 
Stay, stay with us — rest, thou art weary and worn ; 

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay — 
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn. 

And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. 



rienzl's address to the romans. miss mltford, 

Friends, 
I come not here to talk. Ye know too well 
The story of our thraldom. We are slaves ! 
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves ! He sets, and his last beam 
Falls on a slave ; not such as, swept along 
By the full tide of power, the conqueror led 
To crimson glory and undying fame ; 
But base, ignoble slaves— slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots ! lords 
Rich in some dozen paltry villages — 
Strang in some hundred spearmen — only great 
In that strange spell — a name. Each hour, dark fraud, 
Or open rapine, or protected murder, 
Cry out against them. But this very day. 
An honest man, my neighbor, {pointing to Paolo)— thei'Q he 

stands, 
Was struck, struck like a dog, by one who wore 
The badge of Ursini ; because, forsooth, 
He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts^ 
At sight of that great ruffian. Be we men, 
And suffer such dishonor — Men, and wash not 
The stain away in blood ? Such shames are common ' 
I have known deeper wrongs. I, that speak to ye, 
I had a brother once, a gracious boy^ 
Full of gentleness, of calmest hope, 



344 



THE New speAkiIr. 



Of sweet and quiet joy — there was the look 

Of heaven upon his face, which limners give 

* To the beloved disciple.' How I loved 

That gracious boy ! Younger by fifteen years, 

Brother at once and son ! ^ He left my side ; 

A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, — a smile 

Parting his innocent lips.' In one short hour 

The pretty, harmless boy was slain ! I saw 

The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried 

For vengeance ! — Rouse, ye Romans ! — Rouse, ye slaves ! 

Have ye brave sons ^ — Look in the next fierce brawl 

To see them die. Have ye fair daughters ? — Look 

To see them live, torn from your arms, distained. 

Dishonored ; and if ye dare call for justice, 

Be answered by the lash. Yet this is Rome, 

That sat on her seven hills, and, from her throne 

Of beauty, ruled the world ! Yet, we are Romans \ 

Why, in that elder day to be a Roman 

Was greater than a king ! And once again, — 

Hear me, ye wails, that echoed to the tread 

Of either Brutus ! once again, I swear. 

The eternal city shall he free ; her sons 

Shall walk with princes ! 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.- — BYRON. 



The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea. 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset was seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 345 

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever were still ! 

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide. 
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride, 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone. 
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword. 
Hath melted like snow m the glance of the Lord ! 



BELSHAZZAR's feast. MRS. HEMANS. 

Louder and louder swelled the voice of song. 

And joy flashed brighter from the kindling eye. 

And HE, who sleeps not, heard the elated throng, 

In mirth that played with thunderbolts, defy 

The God of Zion ! Fill the nectar high. 

In Israel's cup of consecrated gold ! 

And crown the bowl with garlands, ere they die, 

And bid the censers of the temple hold 

Offerings to Babel's gods, the mighty ones of old ! 

Peace ! is it but a phantom of the brain, 

Thus shadowed forth the senses to appal. 

Yon fearful vision ? — ^who shall gaze again 

To search its cause ? — along the illumined wall. 

Startling, yet rivetting the eyes of all. 

Darkly it moves, — a hand, a human hand. 

O'er the bright lamps of that resplendent hall. 

In silence tracing, as a mystic wand. 

Words all unknown, the tongue of some far distant land. 



346 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 



There are pale cheeks around the regal board, 

And quivering limbs, and whispers deep and low, 

And fitful starts ! — the goblet, richly stored, 

TJntasted foams, the song hath ceased to flow. 

The wavering censer drops to earth, — and lo ! 

The King of Men, the monarch, robed with might. 

Trembles before a shadow ! — say not so — 

The Child of Dust, with guilt's prophetic sight. 

Shrinks from the Dread Unknown, the Avenging Infinite. 

Then Israel's prophet ispoke, — events to come 

Flashed o'er his soul — ^ O king, elate in pride ! 

God hath sent forth the writing of thy doom. 

The One, the Living God, by thee defied ; 

He, in whose balance earthly lords are tried, 

Hath weighed, and found thee wanting. 'T is decreed, 

The conqueror's hands thy kingdom shall divide, 

The stranger to thy throne of power succeed ; 

Thy days are full ! they come — the Persian and the Mede ! ' 

Hark ! hear ye not the sound of footsteps flying ^ 
Steeds rushing on, as o'er a battle field. 
The shouts of hosts exulting or defying. 
The press of multitudes that strive or yield. 
And the loud startling clash of spear and shield, 
Sudden as earthquake's burst ! And blent with these, 
The last wild shriek of those whose doom is sealed 
In mirth's full tide ! — all rising on the breeze, 
As the long deepening roar of fast advancing seas. 

And nearer yet the trumpet's voice is swelling. 

Loud, shrill, and savage, drowning every cry ! 

And lo ! the spoiler in the regal dwelling, 

Death bu.rsting on the hall of revelry ! 

Ere on their brows one fragile rose leaf die. 

The sword hath raged through joy's devoted train ; 

Ere one bright star be faded from the sky, 

Empire is lost, Belshazzar with the slain. 

And the dread lesson given ! — Pride, read it not in vain ! 



I^HE NEW SPEAKER. 347 



Hour of an Empire's overthroV/ ! 

The Princes from the feast were gone, 
^he Idol flame was burning low ; — 

'T was midnight upon Babylon. 

That night the feast was wild and high ; 

That night was Sion's gold profaned ; 
The seal was set to blasphemy ; 

The last deep cup of wrath was drained. 

'J\Iid jewelled roof and silken pall, 
Belshazzar on his couch was flung ; 

A burst of thunder shook the hall — 
He heard — but 't was no mortal tongue 

' King of the East, the trumpet calls, 
That calls thee to a tyrant's grave ; 

A curse is on thy palace walls — 
A curse is on thy guardian wave ; 

' A surge is in Euphrates' bed, 
That never filled its bed before ; 

A surge, that, ere the morn be red. 

Shall load with death its haughty shore, 

^ Behold a tide of Persian steel ! 
A torrent of the Median car ; 
Like flame their gory banners wheel ; 
. Rise, King, and arm thee for the war !' 

Belshazzar gazed ; the voice was past — 
The lofty chamber filled with gloom ; 

But echoed on the sudden blast. 
The rushing of a mighty plume. 

He listened ; all again was still ; 

He heard no chariot's iron clang ; — 
He heard the fountain's gushing rill, 

The breeze that through the roses sang. 



348 IcBB NEW SPEAKER. 

He slept : — in sleep wild murniiurs came ; 

A visioned splendor fired the sky ; 
He heard Belshazzar^s taunted name ; 

He heard again the Prophet cry — 

* Sleep, Sultan ! 't is thy final sleep ; 

Or wake, or sleep, the guilty dies. 
The wrongs of those who watch and weep, 

Around thee and thy nation rise.' 

He started, 'mid the battle's yell, 
He saw the Persian rushing on ; 

He saw the flames around him swell : — ^ 
Thou 'rt ashes ! King of Babylon. 



THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL. CROLY. 

King of the dead I how long shall sweep 

Thy wrath ! how long thy outcasts weep ! 

Two thousand agonizing years 

Has Israel steeped her bread in tears ; 

The vial on her head been poured — 

Flight, famine, shame, the scourge, the sword ! 

'T is done ! Has breathed thy trumpet blast. 

The tribes at length have wept their last ! 

On rolls the host ! From land and wave 

The earth sends up th' unransomed slave ! 

There rides no glittering chivalry, 

No banner purples in the sky ; 

The world within their hearts has died ; 

Two thousand years have slain their pride ! 

The look of pale remorse is there^ 

The lip, involuntary prayer ; 

The form still marked with many a stain — ' 

Brand of the soil, the scourge, the chain ; 

The serf of Afric's fiery ground ; 

The slave, by Indian suns embrowned ; 

The weary drudges of the oar. 

By the swart Arab's poisoned shore, 

The gatherings of earth's wildest tract-^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 349 

On bursts the living cataract ! 

What strength of man can check its speed ? 

They come — the nation of the freed ! 

Who leads their march ? Beneath His wheel 

Back rolls the sea, the mountains reel ! 

Before their tread His trump is blown, 

Who speaks in thunder, and 't is done ! 

King of the dead ! Oh, not in vain 

Was thy long pilgrimage of pain ; 

Oh not in vain arose thy prayer, 

When pressed the thorn thy temples bare ; 

Oh, not in vain the voice that cried, 

To spare thy maddened homicide ! 

Even for this hour thy heart's blood streamed ! 

They come ! — the host of the Redeemed ! 

What flames upon the distant sky ? 
'T is not the comet's sanguine dye, 
'T is not the lightning's quivering spire, 
'T is not the sun's eiscending fire. 
And now, as nearer speeds their march. 
Expands the rainbow's mighty arch ; 
Though there has burst no thundercloud, 
No flash of death the soil has ploughed. 
And still ascends before their gaze. 
Arch upon arch, the lovely blaze ; 
Still, as the gorgeous clouds unfold. 
Rise towers and domes, immortal mould. 
Whose city this ? What potentate 
Sits there the King of Time and Fate, 
Whom glory covers with a robe. 
Whose sceptre shakes the solid globe, 
To whom archangels bow the knee ? — 
The weeper of Gethsem'ane ! 
Down in the dust, aye, Israel, kneel ; 
For now thy withered heart must feel ! 
Aye, let thy wan cheek burn like flame, 
There sits thy glory and thy shame I 
30 



350 THE NEW SPEAKER. 



ilNES WRITTEN IN A CHURCHYARD.- — KNOWLES. 

[' It is good for us to be here : If thou wilt, let us make here three tab- 
ernacle^' one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.' — Mat- 
thew xvii. 4.] 

Methinks it is good to be here — 
If thou wilt, let us build ; but to whom ? 

Nor Elias nor Moses appear, 
But the shadows of eve that encompass the gloom, 
The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb. 

Shall we build to Ambition 1 Oh, no ! 
Affrighted he shrinketh away : 

For see, they would pin him below. 
In a small narrow cave, and begirt with cold clay, 
To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey. 

To Beauty"^ Ah, no ! she forgets 
The charms which she wielded before ; 

Nor knows the foul worm that he frets 
The skin which but yesterday fools could adore, 
For the smoothness it held, and the tint which it wore. 

Shall we build to the purple of Pride , 
The trappings which dizzen the proud ? 

Alas ! they are all laid aside ; 
And here 's neither dress nor adornment allowed. 
But the long winding-sheet, and the fringe of the shroud. 

To Riches ? Alas ! 't is in vain. 
Who hid, in their turns have been hid ; 

The treasures are squandered again : 
And here in the grave are all metals forbid. 
But the tinsel, which shone on the dark coffin lid. 

To the pleasures which Mirth can afford ? 
The revel, the laugh and the jeer ? 

Ah ! here is a plentiful board. 
But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer^ 
Por none but the worm is a reveller here. 

Shall we build to Affection and Love ? 
Ah, no ! they have withered and died, 
Or fled with the spirit above : 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 351 

Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side, 
Yet none have saluted, and none have replied. 

Unto Sorroiv ? The dead cannot grieve. 
Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear. 

Which compassion itself could relieve : 
Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor hope, love, nor fear — 
Peace, peace is the watch-word, the only one here. 

Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow ? 
Ah, no ! for his empire is known^ 

And here there are trophies enow : 
Beneath, the cold dead — and around, the dark stone, 
Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown. 

The first tabernacle to HOPE we will build, 
And look for the sleepers around us to rise ! 

The second to FAITH, which ensures it fulfilled ; 
And the third to the LMIB of the great sacrifice, 
Who bequeathed us them both, when he rose to the skies. 



WHAT IS TIME i MARSDEN. 

T ASKED an aged man, a man of cares. 
Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs ; 
^ Time is the warp of life,' he said, ^ Oh, tell 
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well ! * 
I asked the ancient, venerable dead. 
Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled ; 
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed, 
' Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode 1 ' 
I asked a dying sinner, ere the tide » 

Of life had left his veins : ^ Time ! ' he replied ; 
' I've lost it ; Ah, the treasure ! ' and he died. 
I asked the golden sun, and silver spheres. 
Those bright chronometers of days and years ; 
They answered, ^ Time is but a meteor glare ! ' 
And bade us for eternity prepare. 
I asked the Seasons, in their annual round, 
Which beautify, or desolate the ground ; 
And they replied, (no oracle more wise,) 



352 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

* 'T is Folly's blank, and Wisdom's highest prize f^ 
I asked a spirit lost ; but oh, the shriek 

That pierced my soul ! I shudder while I speak I 
It cried, * A particle ! a speck ! a mite 
Of endless years, duration infinite ! ' — 
Of things inanimate, my dial I 
Consulted, and it made me this reply : — 

* Time is the season fair of living well, 
The path of glory, or the path of hell. ' 
I asked my Bible ; and methinks it said, 

* Time is the present hour, — the past is fled ; 
Live ! live to-day ! to-morrow never yet 
On any human being rose or set. ' 

I asked old Father Time himself, at last, 
But in a moment he flew swiftly past : 
His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind 
His noiseless steed, which left no trace behind. 
I asked the mighty Angel, who shall stand. 
One foot on sea, and one on solid land ; 

* By Heaven, ' he cried, ^ I swear the mystery's o'er 
Time was, ' he cried, ' but Time shall be no more I' 



THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP. MRS. REMANS. 

What hid 'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells, 
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious Main .'* 
Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-color'd shells. 
Bright things which gleam unrecked of, and in vain ; 
Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea. 

We ask not such from thee ! 

Yet more, the depths have more ! what wealth untold, 
Far down, and shining through their stillness lies ! 
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold 
Won from ten thousand royal Argosies. 
Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main ; 
Earth claims not these again ! 

Yet more, thy depths have more ! thy waves have rolled 
Above the cities of a world gone by ! 
Sand hath filled up the palaces of old. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 353 

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry ! 
Dash o'er them, Ocean, in thy scornful play ! 

Man yields thenj to decay ! 

Yet more, the billows and the depths have more ! 
High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast ! 
They hear not now the booming waters roar, 
The battle-thunders will not break their rest. 
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave — 
Give back the true and brave I 

Give back the lost and lovely ! those for whom 
The place was kept at board and hearth so long ; 
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom. 
And the vain yearning woke mid festal song ! 
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown, 
But all is not thine own ! 

To thee the love of women hath gone down, 
Dark flow thy tides o'er Manhood's noble head — - 
O'er Youth's bright locks and Beauty's flowery crown. 
Yet must thou hear a voice — Restore the dead ! 
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee ; 
Restore the dead, thou Sea ! 



EXTRACT FROM THE FIRE- WORSHIPPERS. MOORE. 

But see — he starts — what heard he then ? 
That dreadful shout ! — across the glen 
From the land side it comes, and loud 
Rings through the chasm ; as if the crowd 
Of fearful things, that haunt that dell. 
Its Gholes and Dives and shapes of hell 
Had all in one dread howl broke out, 
So loud, so terrible that shout ! 
^ They come — the Moslems come !' — he cries, 
His proud soul mounting to his eyes, 
Now spirits of the brave, who roam 
Enfranchised through yon starry dome, 
Rejoice — for souls of kindred fire 

30* 



354 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Are on the wing to join your choir !' 
He said — and, Hght as bridegrooms bound 

To their young loves, recUmbed the steep 
And gain'd the shrine — his Chiefs stood round — 

Their swords, as with instinctive leap, 
Together, at that cry accurst, 
Had from their sheaths, like sun beams, burst. 
And hark ! — again — again it rings ; 
Near and more near its echoings 
Peal through the chasm — oh ! who that then 
Had seen those listening warrior-men, 
With their swords grasped, their eyes of flame 
Turned on their Chief — could doubt the shame, 
Th' indignant shame, with which they thrill. 
To hear those shouts and yet stand still. 

He read their thoughts — ^they were his own — 

^ What ! while our arms can wield these blades^ 
Shall we die tamely ? die alone ? 

Without one victim to our shades. 
One Moslem heart where, buried deep. 
The sabre from its toil may sleep ? 
No — God of Jran^s burning skies ! 
Thou scorn'st the inglorious sacrifice. 
No — though of all earth's hope bereft. 
Life, swords, and vengeance still are lefl.^ 
We '11 make yon valleys reeking caves 

Live in the awe-struck minds of men, 
'Till tyrants shudder, when their slaves 

Tell of the Gheber's bloody glen. 



SECOND EXTRACT, FROM THE SAME, 

There was a deep ravine, that lay 
Yet darkling in the Moslem's way : — 
Fit spot to make invaders rue 
The many fall'n before the few. 
The torrents from that morning's sky 
Had filled the narrow chasm breast-high. 



THK NEW SPEAKER. 355 

And, on each side, aloft and wild, 

Huge cliffs and toppling crags were pil'd, 

The guards, with which young Freedom line^ 

The pathways to her mountain shrineg. 

Here, at this pass, the scanty band 

Of Iran's last avengers stand — 

Here wait, in silence like the dead. 

And listen for the Moslem's tread 

So anxiously, the carrion-bird 

Above them flaps his wing unheard ! 

They come — that plunge into the water 
Gives signal for the work of slaughter. 
Now, Ghebers, noW ! — if e'er your blades. 

Had point or prowess, prove them now — > 
Wo to the file that foremost wades ! 

They come — a falchion greets each brow, 
And as they tumble, trunk on trunk 
Beneath the gory waters sunk, — 
Still o'er their drowning bodies press 
New victims quick and numberless ; 
Till scarce an arm in HafecVs band, 

So fierce their toil, hath power to stir. 
But listless from each crimson hand 

The sword hangs, clogged with massacre. ^ 
Never was horde of tyrants met 
With bloodier welcome — never yet 
To patriot vengeance hath the sword 
More terrible libations poured ! 

But vainly hundreds, thousands bleed, 
Still hundreds, thousands more succeed ; — - 
Countless as tow'rds some flame at night 
The north's dark insects wing their flight, 
And quench or perish in its light. 
To this terrific spot they pour — • 
Till bridged with Moslem bodies o'er. 
It bears aloft their slippery tread. 
And o'er the <^ying and the dead. 
Tremendous causeway ! on they pass.—* 
Then, hapless Ghebers, then, alas. 
What hope was left for you ? for you,- 



3^6 THE NEW SPEAKER. i 

Whose yet warm pile of sacrifice ' 1 

Is smoking in their vengeful eyes — ] 

Whose swords how keen, how fierce they knewj | 

And burn with shame to find how few. | 

Crushed down by^ that vast multitude, j 

Some found their graves where first they stood ; ' 
While some with Hardier struggle died. 

And still fought on by Hafed^s sidcj i 

Who, fronting to the foe, trod back ■ 
Tow'rds the high towers his gory track ; 

And, as a lion, swept away I 

By sudden swell of Jordan's pride, * 

From the wild covert where he lay, ' 

Long battles with th' o'erwhelming tide, I 

So fought he back with fierce delay, | 

And kept both foes and fate at bay. j 



-CAMPBELL. 



* And I could weep •,' — th' Oneida chief 
His descant wildly thus begun ; — 
' But that I may not stain with grief 
The death-song of my father's son ! 
Or bow this head in wo ; 
For, by my wrongs, and by my wrath ! 
To-morrow Areouski's breath 
(That fires yon heaven with storms of death,) 
Shall light us to the foe : 
And we shall share, my christian boy ! 
The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy ! 

^ But thee, my flower whose breath was given 

By milder genii o'er the deep, 

The spirits of the white man's heaven 

Forbid not thee to weep : 

Nor will the christian host. 
Nor will thy father's spirit grieve 
To see thee on the battle's eve. 
Lamenting, take a mournful leave 
Of her who loved thee most : 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 357 

She was the rainbow to thy sight ! 
Thy sun — thy heaven — of lost delight ! 

* To-morrow let us do or die ! 

But when the bolt of death is hurled, 

Ah I whither then with thee to fly, 

Shall Outalissi roam the world ? 

Seek we thy once-loved home ? — 

The hand is gone that cropped its flowers : 

Unheard their clock repeats its hours ! 

Cold is the hearth within their bowers ! 

And should we thither roam. 

Its echoes and its empty tread 

Would sound like voices from the dead ! 

Or shall we cross yon mountains blue. 

Whose streams my kindred nation quaffed ; 

And by my side in battle true, 

A thousand warriors drew the shaft ? 

Ah ! there, in desolation cold. 

The desert serpent dwells alone. 

Where grass o'ergrows each mouldering bone, 

And stones themselves to ruin grown. 

Like me, are death-like old. 

Then seek we not their camp — for there 

The silence dwells of my despair ! 

' But hark, the trump ! — to-morrow thou 
In glory's fires shalt dry thy tears ; 
Ev'n from the land of shadows now 
My father's awful ghost appears. 
Amidst the clouds that round us roll ; 
He bids my soul for battle thirst — 
He bids me dry the last — the first — 
The only tears that ever burst 
From Outalissi's soul ; 
Because I may not stain with grief 
The death-song of an Indian chief,' 



358 THE NEW SPEAKER. i 

DEATH OF BERTRAM.— WALTER SCOTT. i 

The outmost crowd have heard a sound, i 

Like horse's hoof on hardened ground ; I 

Nearer it came, and yet more near, | 

The very death's-men paused to hear. '■ 

'T is in the church-yard now — the tread i 

Hath waked the dwelling of the dead ! ' 

Fresh sod, and old sepulchral stone, \ 

Return the tramp in varied tone. ' 

All eyes upon the gate-way hung, i 

When through the Gothic arch there sprung \ 

A horseman armed, at headlong speed — : 

Sable his cloak, his plume, his steed. j 
Fire from the flinty floor was spurned, 

The vaults unwonted clang returned ! , 

One instant's glance around he threw, | 

From saddle-bow his pistol drew. ^ 

Grimly determined was his look ! i 

His charger with the spurs he strook — j 

All scattered backward as he came, | 

For all knew Bertrajn Rosingham ! \ 
Three bounds that noble courser gave ; 

The first has reached the central nave, j 

The second cleared the chancel wide, ^ 
The third — he was at Wycliffe's side. 

Full levelled at the Baron's head, \ 
Rung the report — ^the bullet sped — 

And to his long account, and last, 1 

Without a groan, dark Oswald past I ! 

All was so quick, that it might seem i 

A flash of lightning or a dream. j 

While yet the smoke the deed conceals, | 
Bertram his ready charger wheels ; , ; 

But foundered on the pavement floor i 

The steed, and down the rider bore, ] 

And, bursting in the headlong sway, -j 

The faithless saddle-girths gave way. i 

'T was while he toiled him to be freed, j 

And with the rein to raise the steed, 3 
That from amazement's iron trance 

All Wycliffe's soldiers waked at once. 1 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 359 

Sword, halbert, musket-butt, their blows 
Hailed upon Bertram as he rose : 
A score of pikes with each a wound, 
Bore down and pinned him to the ground. 
But still his struggling force he rearSj 
'Gainst hacking brands and stabbing spears ^ 
Thrice from assailants shook him free, 
Once gained his feet and twice his knee. 
By tenfold odds oppressed at length. 
Despite his struggles and his strength, 
He took a hundred mortal wounds. 
As mute as fox 'mongst mangling hounds ; 
And when he died, his parting groan 
Had more of laughter than of moan ! 
— They gazed, as when a lion dies, 
And hunters scarcely trust their eyes. 
But bend their weapons on the slain, 
Lest the grim king should rouse again I 
Then blow and insult some renewed. 
And from the trunk the head had hewed, 
But Basil's voice the deed forbade ; 
A mantle o'er the corse he laid — 
^ Fell as he was in act and mind. 
He left no bolder heart behind : 
Then give him, for a soldier meet, 
A soldier's cloak for winding sheet. '— = 



THE DYING BRIGAND.— ANONYMOUS. 

She stood before the dying man. 

And her eye grew wildly bright — • 
^ Ye will not pause for a woman's ban, 

Nor shrink from a woman's might : 
And his glance is dim that had made you Ry, 

As ye before have fled : — 
Look dastards ! how the brave can die — 

Beware ! — he is not dead ! 

* By his blood you have tracked him to his lair I- 
Would you bid the spirit part ? — 



360 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

He that durst harm one single hair 

Must reach it through my heart. 
I cannot weep, for my brain is dry— 

Nor plead, for I know not how ; 
But my aim is sure, and the shaft may fly,— 

And the bubbling life-blood flow ! 

Yet leave me, while dim life remains. 

To list his parting sigh ; 
To kiss away those gory stains, 

To close his beamless eye ! 
Ye will not ! no — -he triumphs still. 

Whose foes his death pangs dread — 
His was the power — your's but the will : 

Back — back — he is not dead ! 

His was the power that held in thrall, 

Through many a glorious year, 
Priests, burghers, nobles, princes, all 

Slaves worship, hate, or fear ; 
Wrongs, insults, injuries thrust him forth 

A bandit chief to dwell ; 
How he avenged his slighted worth, 

Ye, cravens, best may tell ! 

His spirit lives in the mountain breath, 

It flows in the mountain wave ; 
Hock — stream — hath done the work of death, 

Yon deep ravine — ^the grave ! — 
That which hath been again may be ! — 

Ah ! by yon fleeting sun, 
Who stirs, no morning ray shall see^ — 

His sand of life has run !' 

Defiance shone in her flashing eye, 

But her heart beat wild with fear ; — 
She starts — the bandit's last faint sigh 

Breathes on her sharpened ear — 
She gazes on each stiffening limb, 

And the death damp chills her brow ;— 
* For him I lived — I die with him ! 

Slaves, do your office now ! ' 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 361 

t^E COMBAT OF FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU. SCOTT. 

[See Dialogue, page 260.] 

Then each at once his faulchion drew, 
Each on the ground his scabbard threw, 
Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain, 
As what he ne'er might see again ; 
Then, foot, and point, and eye opposed. 
In dubious strife they darkly closed. — 
III fared it now with Roderick Dhu, 
That on the field his targe he threw, 
Whose brazen studs, and tough bull-hide. 
Had death so often dashed aside ; 
For, trained abroad his arms to wield, 
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield : 
He practised every pass and ward. 
To feint, to thrust, to strike, to guard : 
While, less expert, though stronger far, 
The Gael maintained unequal war. 
Three times in closing strife they stood. 
And thrice Fitz-James's sword drank blood ; 
No stinted draught— no scanty tide ! 
The gushing flood the tartans dyed : 
Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain. 
And showered his blows like wintry rain ; 
And as firm tower, or castle-roof. 
Against the winter shower is proof. 
The foe, invulnerable still. 
Foiled his wild rage by steady skill ; 
Till at advantage ta'en, his brand 
Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, 
And backwards borne upon the lea, 
Brought the proud chieftain to his knee :— - 
^ Now yield thee, or by him who made 
The world ! thy heart-blood dyes my blade.'— 
' Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy ; 
Let recreant yield, who fears to die.' — 
Like adder darting from his coil — , , 

Like wolf that dashes through the toil — 
Like mountain-cat that guards her young, — 
-Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung j 
31 



ma THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Received, unrecked, a mortal wound, 

And locked his arms his foeman round. 

Now, gallant Saxon ! hold thy own ; 

No maiden's hand is round thee thrown ! 

That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, 

Through bars of brass and triple steel. 

They tug, they strain — down, down they go,- 

The Gael above, Fitz-James below ! 

The chieftain's gripe his throat compressed, 

His knee was planted in his breast ; 

His clotted locks he backward threw, 

Across his brow his hand he drew, 

From blood and mist to clear his sight — ■ 

Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright ; 

But hate and fury i]l supplied 

The stream of life's exhausted tide ; 

And all too late the advantage came, 

To turn the odds of deadly game — 

For, while the dagger gleamed on high, 

Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye. 

Down came the blow — but in the heath 

The errin£^ blade found bloodless sheath. 



CASABIANCA, MRS. HEMANS, 

[Young Casablanca, a boy about thirteen years cfld, son to the admiral 
of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile,) after 
the ship had taken lire, and all the guns had been abandoned ; and 
pRrished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached 
the poM'der.] 

The boy stood on the burning deck, , 

Whence ail but him had fled ; 
The flame that lit the battle's v/reck. 

Shone round him o'er the dead. 

Yet beautiful and bright he stood, 

As born to rule the storm ; 
A creature of heroic blood, 

A proud, though child-like form. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 363 

The flames rolled on — he would not g^o, 

Without his father's word ; 
That father, faint in death below, 

His voice no longer heard. 

He called aloud — ' Say, father, say 

If yet my task is done ? ' 
He knew not that the chieftain lay 

Unconscious of his son. 

' Speak, Father ! ' once' again lie cried, 

' If I may yet be gone ! ' — 
And but the booming shots replied, 

And fast the flames rolled on. 

Upon his brow he felt their breath. 

And in his waving hair ; 
And looked from that lone post of death. 

In still yet brave despair — 

And shouted but once more aloud, ■ 

' My father ! must I stay ? ' 
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud, 

The wreathing fires made way. 

They wrapt the ship in splendor wild, 

They caught the flag on high. 
And streamed above the gallant child. 

Like banners in the sky. 

There came a burst of thunder sound — 

The boy — oh ! where is he ^ 
— Ask of the winds that far around ' 

With fragments strow the sea ! 



A PRIZE ODE FOR WASHINGTONS BIRTH-DAY. BAILEY. 



Ye christian kings and potentates. 
Whose sacrilegious leagues have twined 
Oppression's links around your states, 



36^4 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Say — do ye idly hope to bind 
The fearless heart and thinking mind ? 
When ye can hush the tempest of the deep, 
Make the volcano in its cavern sleep, 
Or stop the hymning spheres, ye may control. 
With sceptered hand, the mighty march of souL 

But what are ye ? and whence your power 
Above the prostrate world to tower, 

And lord it all alone ?^ 
What god — what fiend has e'er decreed, 
That one shall reign, while millions bleed 

To prop the tyrant's throne ? 
Gaze on the ocean, ye would sway : — 
If from its tranquil breast, the day 
Shine out in beams as bright and fair 
As if the heavens were resting there, 
Ye, in its mirror surface, may 

See that ye are but men 5 
But should the angry storm-winds pour 
Its chainless surges to the shore, 
Like Canute^ ye may then 
A fearful lesson learn, ye ne'er would know. 
The weakness of a tyrant's power — how low 
His pride is brought, when like that troubled sea. 
Men rise in chaintess might, determined to be free. 

And they will rise, who lowly kneel. 
Crushed by oppression's iron heel. 
> They yet will rise — in such a change as sweeps 
The face of nature, when the Hghtning leaps 

From the dark cloud of night. 
While Heaven's eternal pillars reel afar. 
As o'er them rolls the thunderer's flaming car ; 
And in the majesty and might 
That Freedom gives, my country, follow thee 
In thy career of strength and glorious liberty. 
As fade the rainbow hues of day, 
Earth's gorgeous pageants pass away ; 
Its temples, arches, monuments, must fall ; 
For time's oblivious hand is on them all. 
The proudest kings will end their toilv^ 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 365 

To slumber with the humble dead — 

Earth's conquerors mingle with the soil, 

That groaned beneath their iron tread, 
And all the trophies of their power and guilt, 
Sink to oblivion with the blood they spilt. 

But still the everlasting voice of Fa43ie 

Shall swell in anthems to the patriot's name, 

Who toiled — who lived to bless mankind, and hurled 
Oppression from the throne. 
Where long she swayed, remorseless and alone, 

Her scorpion sceptre o'er a shrinking world. 
And though no sculptured marble guard his dust, 
Nor ^ mouldering urn ' receives the hallowed trust, 
For HIM a prouder mausole'um towers, 
That time but strengthens with his storms and showers, 
The Land he Saved, the empire of the Free — 
Thy broad and steadfast throne. Triumphant Liberty ! 



PRIZE ODE. 

Then Shakspeare rose ! 
Across the trembling strings 
His daring hand he flings. 
And lo ! a new* creation glows ! 
There, clustering round, submissive to his will, 
Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfil. 

Mark the sceptered traitor slumbering ! 
There flit the slaves of conscience round, 
With boding tongue foul murders numbering ; 
Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound. 
In his dream of blood for mercy quaking, 
At his own dull scream behold him waking ! 
Soon that dream to fate shall turn, 
For him the living furies burn ; 
For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak. 
And chides the lagging night, and whets her hungry beak. 
Hark ! the trumpet's warning breath 
Echoes round the vale of death, 
31^^ 



366 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

Where, through the maddening ranks, the god of slaugh- 
ter rides, 
Ancl o'er their spouting trunks his reeking axle guides ! 
Unhorsed, unhelmed, disdaining shield, 
The panting tyrant scours the field. 

Vengeance ! he meets thy dooming blade ! 
The scourge of earth, the scorn of heaven. 
He falls ! unwept and unforgiven. 
And all his guilty glories fade. 
Like a crushed reptile in the dust he lies, 
And Hate's last lightnirfg quivers from his eyes T 

Behold yon crownless king — 
Yon white-locked, weeping sire : — 
Where heaven's unpillared chambers ring. 
And burst their streams of flood and fire ! 
He gave them all, the daughters of his love. 
That recreant pair !— they drive him forth to rove. 
In such a njght of wo, 
The cubless regent of the wood 
Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood. 
And caverns with her foe ! 
Yet one was ever kind, — - 
Why lingers she behind ^ 
O pity ! — view him by her dead form kneeling, 
Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling. 
His aching eyeballs strain 
To see those curtained orbs unfold, 
That beauteous bosom heave again, — 

But all is dark and cold. 
In agony the father shakes ; 
Grief's choking note 
Swells in his throat, 
Each withered heart-string tugs and breaks ! 
Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes, 
And on her marble hps his last, his death kiss breathes 



THE FiVE AGES OF WOMAN. ROGERS. 

First, how her little breast with triumph swells. 
When the red coral rings its silver bells ! 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 867 

To play in pantomime is then the rage 

Along the carpet's many-coloured stage ; 

Or lisp her merry thoughts with loud endeavor, 

Now hear, now there — in noise and mischief ever ! 

A school-girl next, she curls her hair in papers. 
And mimicks father^s gout, and mother's vapours ; 
Discards her doll, bribes Betty for romances, 
Playful at church, and serious when she dances ; 
Tramples alike on custoijis and on toes. 
And whispers all she hears to dl she knows ; 
Terror of caps and wigs and sober notions ! 
A romp ! that longest of perpetual motions ! 
— Till, tamed and tortured into foreign graces, 
She sports her lovely face at public places ; 
And, v/ith blue laughing eyes, behind her fan, 
First acts her part vrith that great actor, man. 

Too soon a flirt — approach her and she flies ; 
Frowns when pursued, and when entreated sighs ; 
Plays v.ith unhappy 'men as cats with mice. 
Till fading beauty hints the late advice. 
Her prudence dictates what her pride disdained. 
And now she sues to slaves herself had chained. 

Then comes that good old character, a wife. 
With all the dear distracting cares of life 5 
A thousand cards a-day at doors to leave. 
And, in return, a thousand cards receive ; 
Rouge high, play deep, to lead the ton aspire, 
With nightly blaze set Portland place on fire ; 
Snatch half a glimpse at concert, opera, ball, 
A meteor traced by none, though seen by all ; 
And when her shattered nerves forbid to roam, 
In very spleen — rehearse the girl at home. 

Last, the grey dowager in ancient flounces, 
With snuff and spectacles the age denounces ; 
Boasts how the sires of this degenerate isle 
Knelt for a look, and duelled for a «mile ; 
The scourge and ridicule of Goth and Vandal, 
Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal ; 



368 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

With modern belles eternal warfare wages, 

Like her own birds that clamour from their cages ; 

And shuffles round to bear her tale to all, 

Like some old ruin, ^ nodding to its fall.' 

Thus woman makes her entrance and her exit, 

Then most an actress when she least suspects it. 



THE CAMERONIAN DREAM. MISS BENGER. 

In a dream of the night I was wafted away 
To the moorland of mist, where the martyrs lay ; 
Where Cameron's sword and his bible are seen, 
Engraved on the stone where the heather is green. 

'T was a dream of those ages of darkness and blood. 
When the cov'nanter's home was the mountain and wood ; 
When in Wellwood's dark moorlands the standard ofZion, 
All bloody and torn, 'mong the heather was lying. 

Methought the sweet valley breathed music and gladness. 
The fresh meadow blooms hung in beauty and redness ; 
Its daughters were happy to hail the returning, 
And drink the delights of the summer's bright morning. 

But ah ! there were hearts cherished far other feelings, 

Illumed by the light of prophetic revealings. 

Who drank from this scenery of beauty but sorrow 

For they knew that their blood would bedew it to-morrow. 

Their faces grew pale, and their swords were unsheathed. 
But the vengeance that darkened their brow was un- 

breathed 5 
With eyes raised to heaven in meek resignation. 
They sung their last song to the God of salvation. 

The hills with the deep, mournful music w^ere ringing, 
The curlew and plover in concert were singing, 
But the melody died midst derision and laughter. 
As the hosts of ungodly rushed on to the slaughter. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 369 

Though in mist and in darkness and fire they were shrouded, 
Yet the souls of the righteous stood calm and unclouded ; 
Their dark eyes flashed lightning, as proud and unbending. 
They stood like the oak which the thunder is rending. 

The muskets were flashing, the bright swords were gleam- 
ing? 

The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming ; 

The heaven's grew dark, and the thunder was rolling. 

When in Wellwood's dark moorlands the mighty were 
falling. 

A seraph unfolded heaven's doors bright and shining. 
All dazzling like gold of the seventh refining. 
And the souls that went forth out of great tribulation, 
Have mounted the chariots and steeds of salvation. 

On the arch of the rainbow the chariot is gliding, 
Through the paths of the thunder the horsemen are riding — 
Glide swiftly, bright spirits, the prize is before ye, 
A crown never fading, a kingdom of glory [ 



ELEGY ON OLD GRIMES. PROVIDENCE GAZETTE. 

Old Grimes is dead — that good old man, 

We ne'er shall see him more, — 
He wore a single breasted coat, 

That buttoned down before. 

His heart was open as the day ; 

His feelings all were true— 
His hair was so^ii-e inclined to grey, 

He wore it in a queue. 

Whene'er was heard the voice of pain. 

His breast with pity burned — 
The large, round head, upon his cane, 

From ivory was turned. 



Thus, ever prompt at pity's call, 
He knew no base design— 



S10 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

His eyes were dark and rather small, 
His nose was aquiline. 

He lived at peace with all mankind. 

In friendship he was true — 
His coat had pocket-holes behind ; 

His pantaloons were blue. 

But poor old Grimes is now at rest, 

Nor fears misfortune's frown — 
He had a double-breasted vest, 

The stripes ran up and down. 

He modest merit sought to find, 

And pay it its desert — - 
He had no malice in his mind. 

No ruffles on his shirt. 

His neighbors he did not abuse. 

Was sociable and gay — 
He wore not rights and lefts for shoes. 

But changed his every day. 

His knowledge, hid from public gaze, 

He never brought to view — 
Nor made a noise town-meeting days. 

As many people do. 

Thus, undisturbed by anxious cares, '' 

His peaceful moments ran — 
And every body said he was ^ 

A fine old gentleman. /\ |i ^'^' C*. r/:>7 G^f^fTf^ 



Peter's ride to the wedding. — anonymous. 

Peter would ride to the wedding, he would. 
So he mounted his ass, — and his wife 

She was to ride behind, if she could. 

For says Peter, the woman, she should 
Follow, not lead through life. 



THE NEW SPEAKER. 371 

He*s mighty convenient, the ass, my dear, 

And proper, and safe, and now 
You hold by the tail, while I hold by the ear. 
And we '11 ride to the kirk in time never fear, 

If the wind and the weather allow. 

The wind and the weather were not to be blamed. 

But the ass had adopted the whim 
That two at a time was a load never framed 
For the back of one ass, and he seemed quite ashamed 

That two should be stuck upon him. 

Come Dobbin, says Peter, I 'm thinking we '11 trot — ' 

I 'm thinking we wont said the ass. 
In the language of conduct, and stuck to the spot 
As if he had sworn he would sooner be shot 

Than lift up a toe from the grass. 

Says Peter, says he, I will whip him a little, — 

Try it my dear, says she ; — 
But he might just as well have whipped a brass kettle. 
The ass he was made of such obstinate mettle 

That never a step moved he. 

I '11 prick him, my dear, with a needle, said she, 

I 'm thinking he '11 alter his mind — 
The ass felt the needle, and up went his heel ; 
I 'm thinking, says Peter, he 's beginning to feel 

Some notion of moving — behind. 

Now lend me the needle, and I '11 prick his ear, 

And set t' other end too a going — 
The ass felt the needle and upwards he reared, 
But kicking and rearing was all it appeared 

He had any intention of doing. 

Says Peter, says he, we get on rather slow, 

While one end is up, t' other sticks to the ground—* 
But I 'm thinking a method to move him I know, 
Let 's prick head and tail both together, and so 
Give the cretur a start all around. 



sn THE NEW SPEAKER. 

So said, so done ! all. hands were at work, 

And the ass he did alter his mind — 
For he started away with so sudden a jerk, 
That in less than a trice he arrived at the kirk- 
But he left all his lading behind. 



THE ITA-RE. (ALTERED PROM TAYLOR) EDITOR* 

Frank Hayman, dearly loved a pleasant joke, 
And after long contention with the gout, 
A foe that oft besieged him, sallied out 
To breathe fresh air, and appetite provoke. 

It chanced as he was strolling void of care, 
A drunken Porter passed him with a hare. 
The hare was o'er his should.er flung. 
Dangling behind in piteous plight. 
And as he crept in zigzag style. 
Making the most of every mile, 
From side to side poor pussy swung j 
As if each moment taking flight. 

A dog who saw the man's condition, 
A lean and hungry ))olitician, 
On the look out, was close behind— 
A sly and subtle chap. 
Of most sagacious smell, 
Like politicians of a higher kind. 
Ready to snap 
At any thing that fell. 

The Porter staggered on, the dog kept nearj 

Watching each lucky moment for a bite, 
Now made a spring, and then drew back in fear^ 

While Hayman followed, tittering at the sight. 
Through many a street our tipsy Porter goes, 

Then 'gainst a cask in solemn thought reclined ; 
The Avatchful dog the happy moment knows. 

And Hayman cheers him on not far behind. 
Encouraged thus — what dog would dare refrain ? 
He jumped and bit, and jumped and bit, and jumped and 
bit again ; 



THE NEW SPEAKE®. 3^ 

Till having made a hearty meal, 
He careless turned upon his heel, 
And trotted at his ease away, 
Nor thought of asking * what '* t& pay ? ' 

And here some sage, with moral spleen, may say, 
* This Hayman should have driven the dxDg away ; 
The effects of vice the blameless should not bear, 
And folks that are not drunkards lose their hare.' 

Not so unfashionably good. 

The waggish Hayman laughing stood. 

Until our Porter's stupor o'er. 

He jogged on tottering as before. 

Unconscious any body kind 

Had eased him of his load behind ; — 

Now on the houses bent his eye. 

As if his journey's end were nigh, 

Then read a paper in his hand, 

And made a stand. 

Hayman drew near with eager mien, 
To mark the closing of the scene. 

His mirth up to the brim ; 
The Porter read the address once more. 
And hickupped, ' ivhere 's one Hayman' s door ? f? 

/'■»e got a hare for him ! ' 



PARODY ON THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE [s< ^g ^. 

ANONYMOUS. " 15^ 41. j 

Not a sous had he got, in cash or in nc ^^ 
And he looked confoundedly flurried , ^ 

As he bolted away without paying his sh^t 
And the landlady after him hurried. ^ ' 

We saw him alone at the dead of ni'^ht 
(When home from our club retunain/) 

Outstretched as he stumbled beneath th^ Imht 
Of a gas lamp brilliantly burning. 

All bare and exposed to the midnight dews 
Reclined in the gutter, wefound him . ' 

32 ''■• 



374 THE NEW SPEAKER, 

And he looked like a gentleman taking a snooze 
With his Marshall cloak around him. 

The fellow 's as drunk as a beast v/e said, 
But we managed a shutter to borrow ; 

We raised him, and sighed as we thought that his head 
Would dreadfully ache on the morrow. 

We bore him home, and we put him to bed,^ 
And we told his wife and his daughter 

To give him next morning a couple of red 
Herrings, with soda water. 

Loudly they talked of his money that 's gone. 

And his lady began to upbraid him ; 
But little he recked, so they let him snore on 

In the nook where his serving-man laid him. 

We tumbled him up, and had hardly done. 

When we heard at a distance calling, 
The warning voice of a son of a gun 

Of a watchman ' two o'clock*^ bawling. 

Slowly and sadly we all walked down 
From his room in the uppermost story ; 

A rush light we placed on the cold hearth stone, 
And we left him alone in his glory. 



THE APPLE DUMPLINGS AND GEORGE THE THIRD. WOLCOT,^ 

Once in the chace, this monarch drooping, 

From his high consequence and wisdom stooping, 
Entered through curiosity a cot, 
Where an old crone was hanging on the pot, 

The wrinkled, blear eyedy good old granny, 

In this same cot, illumed by many a cranny. 
Had apple dumplings ready for the pot : 

In tempting row the naked dumplings lay. 

When lo ! the monarch, in his usual way. 

Like lightning asked, ^ What 's here I what 's here ? whatr 
what ? what ? what .^ ' 



THE NEW SPEAKEH. 375 

Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, 
His eyes with admiration did expand — 

And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple ; 
'T is monstrous, monstrous, monstrous hard he cried ; 
What makes the thing so hard ? The dame replied. 

Low courtsying, ' Please your majesty, the apple. 
Very astonishing indeed ! strange thing ! 
(Turning the dumpling round) rejoined the king, 

'T is most extraordinary now, all this is — 

It beats the conjurer's capers all to pieces — 
Strange I should never of a dumpling dream — 
But Goody, tell me, where, where, where 's the seam ? 

Sire, there 's no seam, quoth she, I never knew 
That folks did apple dumplings sew ! — 

No ! cried the staring monarch with a grin. 
Then, where, where, where, pray, got the apple in ? 



ORATOR PUFF. MOORE. 

Mr Orator Puff had two tones in his voice, 

The one squeaking thus, — and the other down so- 



In each sentence he uttered, he gave you your choice, 
For one half was B alt, and the rest G below. 

But he still talked away, spite of coughs and of frowns. 
So distracting all ears with his ups and his downs. 

That a wag once, on hearing the Orator say 

' My voice is for ivar,^ asked him, which of them, pray ? 

Reeling homewards one evening, top heavy with gin. 
And rehearsing a speech on the weight of the crown, 

He tripped near a cellar and tumbled right in, 

'■ Sinking fund ' the last words as his noddle came down 

' Good lord ! ' he exclaimed in his he and she tones, 
' Help me out ! help me out ! I have broken my bones!' 

Help you out ! said a Paddy who passed, ' what a bother! 
Why there 's two of you there, can't you help one 
another ? ' 



376 THE NEW SPEAKER. 

PROFESSIONAL DUTY.-— NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 

A CITY auctioneer, one Samuel Stubbs, 

Did greater execution with his hammer, 

Assisted by his puffing clamor. 
Than Gog or Magog with their clubs, — 
For Samuel knocked down houses, churches, 
And woods of oaks and elms and birches. 

But Stubbs, by rattling oft the dice, 
Which seemed as if a grudge they bore. 

Had been too often in a trice 
Down on the nail compelled to pay 
All that his hammer brought him in the day, 

And sometimes more. 

Thus, like a male Penelope, our wight. 
What he had done by day undid by night ; 
No wonder, therefore, if like her, 

He was beset by clamorous brutes, 
Who crouded round him to prefer 

Their several suits, — 
For debts of honor must be paid, 
Whate'er becomes of debts of trade 

One Snips, the tailor, bade his lawyer draw ^ 

A special writ, m 

Serve it on Stubbs, and follow it ™ 

Up with the rigor of the law. 
This lawyer was a friend of Stubbs, 
That is to say, 
In a civic way. 
Where business interposes not its rubs. 
So when he met our Auctioneer, 

Into his outstretched hand he thrust bis 
Writ, and said with friendly leer, 

^ My dear, dear Stubbs, pray do, me justice ;— »- 
In this affair I hope you see 
No censure can attach to me ; — 

Don't entertain a wrong impression ; 
I 'm doing now what must be done ' 

In my profession ' 

' And so am I,' Stubbs answered with a frown, 
And crying, ^ Going — going — going — gone I ^ 

He knocked him down. 



f 



